Tex-Mex Salad with Ranch-Style Beans & Homemade Dressing

Make this Tex-Mex salad with your choice of homemade or canned ranch style beans for a quick, flavorful, and healthy lunch, side dish, or light meatless dinner. Take a look at the Quick Heathy Recipes page for more ideas!

How about an "appetite pleasing" salad recipe that's so good you just may start planning your lunches out as well as your dinners?

After revisiting my healthier American "French" dressing recipe and remembering the salad I learned about in my college years, I realized the salad I mentioned there needed to be a recipe of it's own! I mean, something I still thought about from that long ago has to be worth it, right?

Tex-Mex Salad with Beans, Tomatoes & Chips

With lettuce tomatoes, onions, olives, cheese, and chips it has the basis of many a good Tex-Mex salad. What sets this apart, in my opinion, are the type of beans added and the incredibly flavorful homemade salad dressing. While you may want to short cut and use a bottled dressing, the experience will not be the same. Trust me on this (plus the dressing takes 5 minutes to make - really).

But of course I had to change the salad from my college days up a bit to make it healthier and easier. First was coming up with a less sugary and oily dressing. Then I only use organic chips to avoid GMOs (why can't Fritos be made with organic corn? Sigh). Less cheese was next. And finally, I addressed the beans:

I've always just bought these special cans solely to make this salad (see? It really is that good.). I have to admit I didn't look at the ingredients until recently - I know, shocking. But there are some things that are special treats that fall into the 20% of the 80-20, you know?

Anyway, when I looked, they aren't so bad:

Water, Pinto Beans, Tomato Puree, Blend of Vegetable Oils and Animal Fat(Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil and/or Partially Hydrogenated Cottonseed Oil and Rendered Beef Fat), Contains Less than 2% of: Salt, Chili Peppers, Sugar, Paprika, Vinegar, Spices, Onion Powder, Garlic Powder, Natural Flavorings, Soy Lecithin.

But the partially hydrogenated oils, natural flavorings (that I've discovered aren't all that natural!), and soy lecithin gave me pause enough to see if I could make my own version. But still make it easy because lets face it, who's going to spend a lot of time on lunch?

Plus it would be nice to be able to make this salad whenever I wanted no matter if I had the special beans on hand or not.

Using the ingredient list, a couple recipes I found online , and a can of pinto beans I did create a version I liked. You can see in the photo above that my version on the left is darker and a bit thicker, but the flavor in the salad was really similar.

As far as easy, it's a matter of dumping all the ingredients (things most people have in pantries: beans, tomato paste, water, seasonings) in a pot, bringing them to a boil and then letting them cool while you make the salad. It adds just a few minutes, really.

Once the salad base is ready, you mix in the beans, chips, and dressing right before eating to keep everything crunchy and fresh.

I think this would make a great mason jar salad with the beans and dressing on the bottom and the chips in a separate baggie. Dump them all in a bowl where ever you are (or mix in the jar if there's room) and you have lunch!

Do you have to make your own ranch style beans? No - go ahead and stock up on the cans if you care. But for those who don't - or want to ability to have this fun Tex-Mex salad whenever you want - the 5 minute homemade version is a great option.

But you do have to make the wonderful dressing - it makes the recipe. The bonus is you'll have a great homemade dressing to use on other salads, too.

This may take a few more steps than a more basic salad, but it's definitely worth it - and worthy of it's own spot on AOC!

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

5 from 2 votes

Tex-Mex Salad with Ranch-Style Beans & Homemade Dressing

Make this Tex-Mex salad with your choice of homemade or canned ranch style beans for a quick, flavorful, and healthy lunch, side dish, or light meatless dinner.

Prep Time20 mins

If Making Homemade Beans10 mins

Total Time30 mins

Course: Salads

Cuisine: Mexican

Yield: 4 servings

Author: Jami Boys

Ingredients

For Homemade Ranch Style Beans:

• 1 can pinto beans
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste*
• 4 to 5 tablespoons water or to desired consistency
• 1½ teaspoons salt or to taste
• 1½ teaspoons beef bullion
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon vinegar

For Salad:

• 1 head romaine lettuce chopped
• 2 to 3 plum tomatoes chopped (slicing tomatoes work, too)
• 1/2 large sweet onion sliced
• 1/3 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 1/2 can olives sliced (optional)
• 1 cup crushed tortilla chips**
• 1 can Ranch Style Beans with sauce or homemade version included here
• Homemade American-French Dressing or your favorite tomato-based dressing

Instructions

Homemade Ranch Style Beans:

• If making homemade beans, combine all the bean ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Remove from heat and let cool while making salad.

Salad:

• Add lettuce, tomatoes, onion, cheese, and olives if using to a large serving bowl.
• Make homemade American French Dressing in a blender.
• Right before serving, mix the salad base with the dressing, beans, and chips. Divide into 4 servings and garnish with more chips if desired.

Notes

*You can freeze the rest of the can in small portions (an old ice cube tray works great to make 1 tablespoon portions) and then you'll have the right amounts to make these again because I'm sure you'll want to!

**Any tortilla chips will work, but my favorite are Frito chips. However, I don't buy them anymore since I stick to organic corn to stay away from GMOs. Instead I use Trader Joe's Organic Corn Chip Dippers which are just like dipping Fritos.

Nutrition

Calories: 203kcal | Carbohydrates: 24g | Protein: 6g | Fat: 10g | Saturated Fat: 3g | Cholesterol: 10mg | Sodium: 1308mg | Potassium: 263mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 3g | Vitamin A: 1207IU | Vitamin C: 7mg | Calcium: 131mg | Iron: 1mg

Did you make this recipe?Mention @anoregoncottage or tag #anoregoncottage!

More easy salads you may like:

Classic Caesar Salad with Homemade Dressing and Croutons

Easy Chopped Salad

Greek Tuna and Tomato Salad

Disclosure: affiliate links in this post will earn commission based on sales, but it doesn't change your price. Click here to read my full disclaimer and advertising disclosure.