copycat macho salad recipe-fancy style

Happy Wednesday lovelies! I hope your week is off to a fabulous start! I have been dragging this week…a case of the Mondays, that is not going away! Ha! Do you have a certain meal from a restaurant that you just love? One of those meals that you think about a lot? One of those meals that if you don’t live in the same city as the restaurant, you are bummed anytime you get a craving for said meal? Well, I do! One of my most fave salads ever is the “macho salad” from Bandera and a few other Hillstone restaurants. I have lived near one of these restaurants a few times in my life and now, sadly, I don’t. The closest one is about an hour away. I had a serious craving for this salad when I was prego with Reagan (and Teddy too, but we lived about 20 minutes away from one of the restaurants at that time), so I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to recreate the recipe! I found a few recipes online but nothing was quite the same. My recipe is not the same either and I still don’t have the dressing down completely, but it’s really delish anyway and most importantly, it satisfies the craving. I have made this salad quite a bit lately and I just had to share it with all of you…just in case you don’t live near one of these restaurants.

*the original salad includes rotisserie chicken and corn. Sometimes I add both and sometimes I don’t. I don’t eat a lot of chicken, so unless my hubs is around, I usually just eat it veggie style. 🙂

**this recipe will serve about 4 people as a main dish.

The first step is to make the cornbread croutons. Sometimes I will make homemade cornbread and sometimes I will make cornbread from a box. You can also sometimes find pre-made cornbread at Trader Joe’s or other grocery stores, which is even easier! Just do whatever makes you happy and whatever is easiest for you. It will be delish any way you make it.  I just chop a bunch of cubes and throw them on a foil-lined baking sheet.

I broil them for about 10 minutes, give or take a few minutes. You def want to keep an eye on them. I turn them over a few times in the process. The key is to have crunchy cornbread croutons. Yum!

Now let’s get moving onto the salad while the croutons cool down. I chop up the tomatoes and avocado into nice size chunks (and dates and almonds if they’re not already chopped).

I toss all the rest of the ingredients in as I go.

You know the term “jazz hands” but have you heard of “goat cheese hands?!” Ha!

I add the cornbread croutons last because I want to be sure they are cool. I don’t want them melting my goat cheese!

Now we are ready to make the dressing!

Mix it all together in a mason jar (of course!). You can taste it as you go. I think dressings are always different and can always be modified. You learn as you go and add and subtract ingredients each time you make it, so just go with what tastes yummy to you! Then just shake, shake, shake it up!

Pour on that yumminess and mix up the salad! Are you ready to try the most delish salad ever?!

Serve it up and enjoy!!!!!

Make it this salad today! You won’t be disappointed! Keep in mind, you can make the salad and dressing in smaller portions and eat it all week. I do that sometimes when I’m on a macho salad kick! I hope your Wednesday is full of fabulousness with some fancy macho salad added in of course! Only a couple more days till the weekend! Woohoo!!!!