Dinner-worthy salads are in heavy rotation at our house and this easy Grilled Chicken Chopped Salad with BBQ Ranch Dressing is an all-time favorite! Crisp lettuce, crunchy vegetables, creamy dressing, and plenty of protein all mingle for a delicious meal that everyone at your dinner table will enjoy.
This salad has a tasty balance of flavors and comes together almost as quickly as you can chop! The barbecue ranch dressing can be customized for your perfect ratio of sweet to savory and you have loads of choices for the chicken: grilled, pulled from a rotisserie chicken, or broiled. Use this recipe for broiled chicken thighs, salsa chicken, or even sub in some slow cooker pork shoulder for the winter months or if you don’t want to grill the chicken. The recipe is flexible enough to allow everyone to love it.
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Ingredients
I include ingredient notes here when I think they’ll be helpful, including ways to source, any preparation tips, or why I've chosen a particular ingredient. Be sure to check out the recipe card below for the full list of ingredients and their quantities!
- Prepared Ranch Dressing - Choose your favorite bottled brand or make your own, but we almost always opt to keep this simple with a store bought version.
- Barbecue Sauce - Use your favorite brand of BBQ sauce here. I like something sweet, like a Kansas City Style.
- Tomato - Use a plum or Roma tomato or a beefsteak tomato and remove the seeds if desired to reduce the moisture in the salad.
- Bell Pepper - Use any color of bell pepper here, but I love an orange bell pepper to get the most color in the salad.
- Black Beans - Drain and rinse one can of black beans to add extra protein and fiber to the salad.
- Cooked Chicken - The salad is best with grilled chicken, but any cooked chicken will work. Rotisserie chicken, broiled chicken, canned chicken, and leftover turkey have all been good options.
- Avocado - Cool, creamy avocado that is perfectly ripe adds a great texture to the salad.
- Corn - Use fresh, frozen, or canned corn in this recipe. A frozen roasted corn was thawed for the salad pictured here.
- Jicama - We love the big crunch you get from diced jicama. I most often buy jicama sticks already prepared from the produce section at Trader Joe’s, but you can peel and dice a whole jicama from the supermarket as well.
- Lettuce - I think shredded iceberg or Romaine lettuce is best for this salad to give a crunchy texture and allow you to get a forkful of lots of different ingredients all at once.
- Cilantro - Feel free to omit this if you have cilantro supertasters in your crew, but we love the fresh herbal flavor a handful of chopped leaves adds to the salad.
- French Fried Onions - They’re not just for casseroles! Adding some crunch and onion flavor to the top of the salad really elevates this to restaurant-worthy status.
Instructions
Before jumping into the salad preparation, shred some rotisserie chicken or make a batch of grilled chicken. For the grilled chicken, start with about one pound of boneless, skinless chicken thighs. Brush them with barbecue sauce and grill or broil them for 4-5 minutes per side, until the internal temperature is 165°F. Allow the chicken thighs to rest while you prepare the rest of the salad ingredients and then chop or slice them into bite-sized pieces.
Combine the prepared ranch dressing and barbecue sauce until they are well blended. Feel free to change the ratio of the two ingredients to your liking, we use equal parts of each in this recipe.
Chop your bell pepper, jicama, tomato, and avocado into a medium dice. Shred your lettuce into thin strips and chop up the cilantro leaves.
Assemble a platter of all of the salad toppings by piling each ingredient on a large plate. Use small bowls to keep the dressing, crispy onions, and cilantro separate.
Make a bed of lettuce on the serving plate or bowl and add any of the desired toppings. Finish with a sprinkle of cilantro and crispy onions and a drizzle of the BBQ ranch dressing.
You can also opt to bring this dinner salad to the table as a tossed salad, no assembly required by your guests. In a large salad bowl, combine the barbecue sauce and ranch dressing until smooth. Then layer in all of the other ingredients and toss everything together well so that you get all of the flavors and textures in each perfect bite!
Substitutions and Variations
I've made this salad for years now, and sometimes the ingredients drift a bit. There's wiggle room in the recipe for you to make it your own. The basic recipe below is a framework; make it once as is and then start experimenting to find your favorite combination!
Here are some tested substitutions and variations:
- Make it Vegetarian - Omit the chicken and you still have a satisfying dinner salad with the beans and a variety of vegetables.
- Corn Options - Use corn fresh from the cob in the peak of summer! Otherwise, choose frozen corn that has been thawed (frozen roasted corn has even more flavor). Canned corn works well, too, and you can even use the Mexicorn blend that has corn and bell peppers.
- Pick Your Favorite Beans - Black beans can be swapped for canned pinto beans, red kidney beans, or navy beans.
- Add Crunch - Top the salad with crispy tortilla strips in addition to (or instead of) the crispy onions.
- More Additions - A can of drained green chiles, a handful of shredded pepper jack or cheddar cheese, diced red onion, diced green onions, or a squeeze of fresh lime are all welcome additions to your salad.
Serving Suggestions
Serve the salad immediately after tossing all of the ingredients together. While we most often enjoy this as a main course, you can serve a meat-free version as a side dish with quesadillas, a grilled steak, or sauteed shrimp.
Storage
This salad keeps well for 1-2 days in the refrigerator as long as the dressing and ingredients are stored separately. If I’m packing leftovers for lunch the next day, I put the dressing at the bottom of the lunch container and pile the not-so-delicate ingredients (beans, peppers, jicama, avocado, chicken, and corn) on top. Then layer on your tomatoes, lettuce, and cilantro. Keep the crispy onions and the BBQ ranch dressing separate and at lunch time shake everything together in the lidded container.
Make Ahead Options
You can absolutely save yourself some crunch-time dinner prep by grilling your chicken and chopping your vegetables the night before. Wait until right before serving to dice up the avocado and chop the cilantro so that they don’t turn brown. Store your prepared ingredients and the BBQ ranch dressing in separate containers in the refrigerator and assemble your salad or DIY platter right before serving for a meal that gets to the table in under 10 minutes.
FAQ
This salad can easily be made vegetarian by omitting the chicken. With protein from the beans and the variety of other vegetables the salad will still be filling!
Keeping all of the ingredients similarly sized when chopping them means that you can get all of the flavors and textures in each bite. A standard arranged salad or tossed green salad typically has larger leaves of lettuce and toppings so that only a few ingredients are in any given bite.
To get a satisfying salad, you should balance sweet, salty, tart, savory, creamy, and crunchy flavors and textures. This grilled chicken chopped salad with a creamy BBQ ranch dressing has it all, plus smoky notes from the barbecue sauce and grilled chicken!
More DIY Dinner Recipes
If a DIY dinner keeps the peace between the picky kids and the grownups at your dinner table, here are some other dinner recipes that can be served the same way:
Pairing Suggestions
These are my favorite dishes to serve with this grilled chicken chopped salad:
Try It and Share
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Recipe
Grilled Chicken Chopped Salad + BBQ Ranch Dressing
Ingredients
- ⅓ cup ranch dressing (bottled or homemade)
- ⅓ cup barbecue sauce (plus additional for brushing the grilled chicken)
- 1 cup tomatoes (diced)
- ½ bell pepper (diced)
- 15 oz. black beans (canned, drained and rinsed)
- ¾ cup corn kernels (canned, frozen and thawed, or fresh)
- 2 cups cooked chicken (chopped, see notes)
- 1 avocado (diced)
- 1 cup jicama (diced)
- 4 cups lettuce (Romaine or iceberg, shredded)
- ¼ cup cilantro (chopped)
- ⅓ cup French fried onions
Instructions
- Broil or grill boneless, skinless chicken thighs than have been brushed with barbecue sauce for 4-5 minutes per side, until they reach an internal temperature of 165°F. Allow the grilled chicken to rest while the rest of the salad is prepared and then chop or dice the chicken.
- In a medium bowl, mix the ranch dressing and barbecue sauce.
- Chop or dice the tomatoes, bell pepper, avocado, jicama, and cilantro. Shred the lettuce.
- Place the salad ingredients on a large platter in several piles or small bowls. Place the shredded lettuce in a bowl.
- Serve the salad ingredients and allow everyone to prepare their salad in their won bowl. Top the salads with the bbq ranch dressing.
- To prepare the salad in one bowl, mix the barbecue sauce and ranch dressing in the bottom of a large serving bowl. Layer the beans, chicken, vegetables, and French fried onions over the top of the dressing. Toss the ingredients together well and serve immediately.
Notes
- use canned chicken which has been drained and shredded
- shred or dice up cooked and cooled rotisserie chicken
- use this Everyday Broiled Chicken Thighs recipe and slice or chop the chicken
Nutrition facts are sometimes provided below and are calculated using an online calculator. With specific brands of ingredients and additions, omissions, or substitutions the nutrition facts may change. We encourage you to use your own nutrition facts caculator to obtain the most accurate nutrition facts for your meal.
Cassie Waltman says
Tell us your favorite toppings combination for this salad! I never skip the crunchy fried onions.