I love Sweetgreen and I wish we had them in Connecticut. Such a great fast food concept! This is an elote salad based on the famous Mexican street corn. I love hearty salads, and I’ve been trying to eat more vegetables at lunchtime, so I’ve been trying to recreate Sweetgreen’s salads.
Sweetgreen puts crumbled tortilla chips in their elote salad bowls, and you can also do the same. I’ve read every nutrition label on every bag of tortilla chips in my local area, and I’ve discovered that Late July’s Chia and Quinoa tortilla chips have the least amount of sodium — not getting paid to shill them, just an FYI type of shill.
Also, you don’t need to use cottage cheese in your elote bowl. I used cottage cheese because I’m cheap and didn’t want to buy different cheese that would only be eaten by me. My husband/kids hate feta cheese, cotija cheese, goats cheese and queso fresco, which are all viable cheese options for this salad. We just happen to genuinely love cottage cheese, therefore we always have it in the fridge. You can firm up cottage cheese into a crumbly feta-like substance by draining it in a cheesecloth.
Elote Salad Bowl
Ingredients
Roasted Corn and Peppers
- 4 cups frozen or fresh corn
- 1 red bell pepper (chopped)
- 1 poblano pepper (chopped)
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 teaspoon umami seasoning
Jalapeno Lime Dressing
- 1 jalapeño pepper
- 2 tablespoon lime juice
- 2 tablespoon water
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon cumin powder
- ½ cup parsley (or cilantro. I hate cilantro)
Other Salad Ingredients
- 8 ounces 1% lowfat cottage cheese
- ½ cup uncooked quinoa
- 1 cup canned black beans
- 1 avocado
- ½ cup chopped red onion
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes (halved)
- ¼ cup unsalted sunflower seed kernels (toasted)
- 8 cups arugula (or salad greens of your choice)
Instructions
- Make the dressing: combine all the dressing ingredients in a food processor and pulse until liquefied (you might need to add more or less water.)
- Make the roasted corn and peppers: Preheat the oven to 400 °F. Combine the corn kernels, chopped peppers, olive oil and umami seasoning in a large bowl. Spread the mixture on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for about 8 to 10 minutes. (Target sells inexpensive umami seasoning.)
- Squeeze the water out of the cottage cheese by wrapping it in a cheesecloth, tying the cheesecloth to the handle of a spoon and hanging it over a bowl for a few hours until the liquid drains out. Alternatively, you could also use queso fresco, cotija cheese, goat cheese or feta cheese. (We just really love cottage cheese.)
- Cook the quinoa according to package instructions.
- You can toast the sunflower seed kernels if you want – put them in a small skillet over medium heat and gently stir them around for 2 to 3 minutes until lightly browned.
- Arrange the lettuce, quinoa, roasted corn and peppers, tomato, avocado, red onions, black beans, cheese, sunflower kernels and dressing in a bowl.
Notes
