Crock Pot Chicken and Black Bean Taco Salad with Avocado Dressing

I love taco salad and I love it even more when you can make it in the crock pot. It is a great use of your crock pot in the summer time when things like chili and soups aren't on your dinner planning list. Plus while being filling it is still very healthy and light. Oh and if you are able to, always use fresh grated cheese! Sooo much better than buying the pre-grated bag. And then you can always sneak a pinch of it (gotta reward yourself for doing the grating right?) yum!

Crock Pot Chicken and Black Bean Taco Salad
adapted from Skinnytaste, serves 4, about 290 calories per serving*

Ingredients:

- 2 large boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 1 1/2 tsp cumin
- 1 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 1 cup of canned black beans, rinsed
- 1 cup of chunky salsa
- 6-7 cups of chopped romaine lettuce
- 3 roma tomatoes, chopped
- 2 Tbsp chopped scallions
- 1/4 cup mexican blend cheese, grated (or your favorite cheese)

Combine first 6 ingredients in crock pot and cook on Low for 4 hours. DO NOT cook this any longer than 4 hours as there is not much liquid in the crock pot and the chicken and beans will dry out (I learned this the hard way... it is not like chili or soup where you can just leave it on low for 10 hours while you are at work).

Avocado Dressing (I didn't want to get all the ingredients Skinnytaste listed for her dressing so I improvised with what I had and it turned out great)

- 1 large avocado
- juice of 1/2 of a lime
- 2/3 cup Light Ranch dressing (Hidden Valley)
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp cumin
- salt and pepper to taste

Mash avocado into dressing until creamy. Add other ingredients and mix well. Since we had two servings one night and two servings the next, I made half of the dressing each night so it would be fresh but you wouldn't have to do that. Or if you don't want to bother with making dressing, just use some light ranch or another light dressing.

Place a cup-ish of lettuce on a plate and top with about a 1/4 of the chicken/black bean mixture. Pile on 1/4 of the cheese, tomatoes, dressing and scallions. Repeat for the other 3 servings.  Enjoy!


Eric liked to add some extra salsa to his which is low in calories so feel free to add more salsa to the mix!

*I don't know the exact calories since I did not follow her recipe completely but I am sure it is very very close.