Black Bean and Cornbread Panzanella Salad

Black Bean + Cornbread Panzanella Salad.

March 7, 2013

As you know, one of my goals in life is making fun vegetableless salads.

Or at least – salads with the least amount of vegetables possible. This guarantees that I will actually… eat them. The salads. Not the vegetables.

I guess that is sort of beyond the point then, huh? Whatevah. Not proud but… it’s the deal.

Right now I am stuck in the middle of a mexican/texmex food love affair. Then again… when am I not? I actually made this salad a few weeks ago (hence the jalepeno margs) after I got a bit overzealous with the cornbread (four batches in three days… what what) and needed to do SOMETHING with it besides just eat it. I love all sorts of panzanella salads and as usual, trashed one up a bit. Surprise surprise. What? It still has bread. And tomatoes.

Just let me be.

I sort of threw it together on a whim, what with the leftover cornbread, some extra copycat chipotle corn salsa and more of the chile lime vinaigrette that I used on last month’s tequila fajita steak salad. No no, it wasn’t a month old. Worry not. I made more.

The fact is though that this salad really got no lovin’ at all as it was mostly comprised of a miss mash of leftovers dying in my fridge and things that I didn’t want to have to deal with anymore. I loved it so much though.

…even I did have a few lettuce leaves with my cornbread croutons.

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Black Bean + Cornbread Panzanella Salad

Yield: serves 2-4

Ingredients:

1 batch of cornbread, cut into cubes
12 ounces of baby romaine lettuce
1 cup of black beans
1 cup of copycat chipotle corn salsa
1 avocado, cubed
1 pint of grape tomatoes, halved
salt + pepper

chile lime vinaigrette
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoons rice vinegar
1/2 tablespoon red pepper or chile oil
2 teaspoons honey
the juice of 2 limes
a pinch of salt + pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Spread cornbread cubes on a baking sheet. Bake for 6-7 minutes, toss, then bake for 6-8 minutes more, until golden and toasted. Set aside.

While the cornbread is toasting, combine lettuce, tomatoes, black beans, avocado, corn salsa and cilantro in a large bowl. Season with a bit of salt and pepper and toss well to combine. Add in the cornbread croutons and toss again. Serve with chili lime vinaigrette!

chile lime vinaigrette
Combine all ingredients in a mason jar, shaker bottle or large bowl and shake/whisk until combined.