This Mexican street corn kale salad turns esquites into a meal-sized salad with shredded kale, grilled chicken, avocado and tortilla chips!
Now that I shared my Mexican street corn salad recipe, I want to share my favorite way to turn it into a full meal… Mexican street corn kale salad. It’s packed with veggies, protein and has so much flavor.
If you’ve been an EBF blog reader for a while, you probably know that I despise boring salads. I like to keep my salads interesting by combining different textures, temperatures and obviously flavors! When I first made this Mexican street corn salad, I basically wanted it on everything (including salads) so that’s how this kale salad recipe was born!
One taste of this combo with the Mexican street corn, grilled chicken, avocado over massaged kale and I was hooked. It honestly reminds me of a salad you’d get from a casual chain like Chopt or Sweetgreen.
Here’s what you need to make this epic kale salad:
You can totally put plain, raw chicken breasts on the grill and grill them up, but I like to spice them up a little bit! If you have time, this apple cider vinegar chicken would be perfect for this salad. The end result is a flavorful, moist chicken breast.
I also like adding dry rub to my chicken before grilling. It takes basically no prep time and results in a super flavorful grilled protein! You could use my blackened seasoning recipe or just a mixture of chili powder, paprika, salt and pepper to play off the seasonings in the street corn salad. Simply rub the mixed spices over the chicken breast before grilling.
When you’re ready to grill, preheat the grill. When it’s around 400ºF, place the chicken on the grill and cook for about 10 minutes, flipping halfway through. Use a meat thermometer to check the chicken after cooking – you want the inside temperature of the breast to be at least 165ºF.
Once the chicken has been cooked, allow it to cool before chopping and using in the salad recipe. The chicken can be grilled up to 3 days in advance.
For this kale salad I like to divide the avocado and use one half to massage the kale, along with lime juice and salt. This softens the kale and is essentially like a dressing for the salad.
Once the kale is massaged, simply add all the chopped ingredients and mix them together in a big bowl. Another option is to use a salad chopper bowl! This chopper/bowl combo is one of my most used kitchen accessories. To prep the salad using the salad chopper, simply massage your kale, add all remaining ingredients to the bowl and then use the rolling knife (similar to a pizza cutter) to chop the ingredients up and mix everything together.
Once you’ve tossed the salad, portion it into bowls. Add a drizzle of sriracha, if using and dive in!
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Made this for dinner last night served with fresh margaritas. And it was delicious. We did it without meat. It was amazing and filling for two.
Woo! I’m glad this recipe was a hit, Kathleen. Thank you for sharing your review, I really appreciate it!
Love the addition of Kale to this.
Thanks, Angela! Glad you enjoyed it.
I love mexican food and this salad is the best!
I could eat it everyday!
Yay! So happy to hear this salad was a hit, Julie! Thanks so much for the review. It means the world to me!
I made this with filet mignon. It was fast, easy, and delish! I’ll try with apple cider chicken too.
This was amazing! I love kale and love finding new ways to use it. I omitted the chicken and it was still so good. Also used canned corn and roasted it a little in a pan. I can’t wait to share this with people I love!
Hi Nicole – I am so glad that you are enjoying this recipe. Thank you for coming back to leave a review and star rating, I really appreciate it.
Woo! So glad you enjoyed this recipe, Sarah! Thanks so much for making it and coming back to leave a review. It means so much to me!
Very delish!
Glad you enjoyed this recipe, Cheryl! Thanks for the review 🙂