Cha-Cha Chicken & Avocado Salad
with Lettuce, Pepper Jack & Cilantro-Cumin Vinaigrette
- Milk
Have you fallen into a salad rut? It's just not that easy to come up with a hearty, fresh, filling, yet light and satisfying option. But our chefs are always thinking and here’s what they came up with: garlic- and cumin-sauteed chicken, with luscious diced avocado, crunchy red onion, and juicy tomato over crisp greens, all coated in a sprightly chili-cilantro vinaigrette & sprinkled with pepper jack cheese. Cha-cha ching!
Ingredients
1 unit
Avocado
1 unit
Baby Lettuce
1 unit
Red Onion
10 ounce
Chopped Chicken Breast
1 teaspoon
Cumin
2.5 teaspoon
White Wine Vinegar
½ cup
Pepper Jack Cheese
(Contains: Milk)
1 unit
Tomato
1 teaspoon
Garlic Powder
¼ ounce
Cilantro
1 unit
Chili Pepper
Not included in your delivery
teaspoon (tsp)
Salt
teaspoon (tsp)
Black Pepper
4 tablespoon (tbsp)
Olive Oil
1 teaspoon (tsp)
Cooking Oil
Nutrition Values
Utensils
Cooking Steps
• Wash and dry produce. • Pick cilantro leaves from stems; finely chop leaves. Trim and halve chili lengthwise, removing ribs and seeds for less heat; mince chili.
• In a large bowl, combine cilantro, half the vinegar (all for 4 servings), ½ tsp cumin (1 tsp for 4), ½ tsp garlic powder (1 tsp for 4), and as much chili as you like. (You’ll use the rest of the cumin and garlic powder later.) • Whisk in 4 TBSP olive oil (8 TBSP for 4). Taste and season generously with salt and pepper.
• Chop lettuce into bite-size pieces. Halve, pit, peel, and dice avocado. Dice tomato. Peel, halve, and thinly slice half the onion (whole onion for 4 servings).
• Pat chicken* dry with paper towels. • Heat a drizzle of oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Add chicken; season with remaining cumin, remaining garlic powder, a big pinch of salt, and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until chicken is browned and cooked through, 4-6 minutes. • Turn off heat; stir in 1 TBSP dressing (2 TBSP for 4 servings). Transfer chicken to a cutting board and chop into bite-size pieces if necessary. Set aside.
• To bowl with dressing, toss together lettuce, avocado, tomato, and sliced onion until coated. Taste and season with salt and pepper. • Stir in half the chicken and half the pepper jack.
• Divide salad between bowls. Top with remaining chicken and remaining pepper jack. Serve.
Chicken is fully cooked when internal temperature reaches 165°.
Customer reviews
Review summary
Updated on Dec 2025- Flavor: Many loved the tasty Cilantro-Cumin Vinaigrette and enjoyed the mix of flavors with a mild kick of spice 🌶️.
- Ease of prep: Quick and easy to make, though some found it took longer than expected to prepare.
- Suggestions: Consider adding corn, black beans, or tortilla strips for more variety and texture in the salad.
- Portions: Several mentioned needing more lettuce; others wanted additional toppings to balance the greens.
- Ingredients: Some found the avocados unripe; consider using pre-ripened avocados or providing ripening instructions.
Reviews from our home cooks
While we had high hopes for the Cha-Cha Chicken & Avocado Salad, it largely felt underwhelming. The Cilantro-Cumin Vinaigrette was delicious; however, even with the avocado, it felt like it could have used more ingredients. Corn, black beans, or a tortilla shred topper could have made the difference.
Best salad I've ever had! I liked the fresh ingredients, loved making the dressing myself, and the mix of flavors and temperatures were divine. More please!
One of my favorite meals yet! Vegetables were very fresh. Good flavors! Would definitely order this one again!
Really loved the flavors! And the small kick of spice at the end! Yum!
The chicken strips I got was more like ground chicken so drying it with paper towels didn't quite work without a chicken sticking to the towels. The amount of raw onion was awful. We needed up taking them out. Maybe they need to be pickled or soaked in water to take off the bite. The flavors were great other than too much raw onion.
The Avocado was not ripe, instead of being creamy, it was a little bit hard. The red onion was very strong, I think Vidalia onions would have been a better choice. A second tomato would have been nice.
Tomato and avocado were both hard and not ripe. Not sure what your portion sizes are supposed to be, but the head of romaine was the size of a heart romaine, and was at least disproportionate to the amount of chicken sent.
The recipe was good but the produce wasn't very fresh and not a lot of lettuce.
More toppings, if you don't eat tomato and onion like me it leaves for a tasty but boring salad
Delicious, quick meal. So much different from the usual meals.
