Italian Sauce Salad

[Gauthier Zitnik]

My juicy beef meatballs in tomato sauce are deliciously seasoned and taste simply heavenly when nestled on a bed of fresh greens, vibrant cherry tomatoes, and avocado, all tied together with simple olive oil and balsamic dressing.

Step Three (Picture 3 above) - Add the reheated meatballs to the salad bowl and drizzle some extra tomato sauce on top of the meatballs. Garnish with grated Parmesan cheese, extra mozzarella balls, and cucumber slices on top of the salad before serving (optional).

Love it! We make this several times a year but add salsa and black beans to the recipe. Another way to make it a little healthier is to use 1-2 T chili powder, minimal salt and a little water in the ground beef rather than the package of taco seasoning.

Thank you, Emily! This sounds a lot like the taco salad my mom makes, but way more WW friendly. I will add cauliflower broken into tiny florets and scallions. The more crunch, the better! And knowing I can have two cups of this for only 8 points makes me very happy, indeed! BTW, I will use Kentucky Bison instead of beef. Even leaner, and deeper, richer flavor!

We have made this salad for 40 years but I have always used Taco Doritos. I mix Kraft Catalina dressing with mild taco sauce (half and half) for the dressing and only season the meat with salt. Sometimes add black beans and corn. We have salad and dessert evenings at our church two times a year and I take this salad every time. It is always gone. =)

Gotta do some onion though..and add a bit of ranch till it tastes right. the catalina is too sweet on her own. i have found oddly enough that generic ranch is better not as much pepper taste. MMMMMMM taco salad ?

My daughter is 51 an she got this recipe when she was in 7th grade and we have been making it since. Ours calls for lettuce, kidney beans, tomatoes, taco sauce, avocados, shredded cheddar cheese, ground beef, taco seasoning packet, Doritos and thousand island dressing. The avocados are great in this recipe. We love it.

Make this for my Taco Salad, however a few different ingredients:
Tostitos chips, bagged salad mix, Colby cheese ( milder and blended taste or the Mexican blend ), Western dressing. A bit smoother taste.
Do not put dressing on until ready to eat, lettuce will wilt & chip will be soggy.

I just wanted to let you know that we had this for dinner and it was a big hit! My husband wanted something easy to cook so it would be ready when I got off work. He said it was sooo easy, and he followed you recipe exactly (using the lite catalina dressing). We both ended up having seconds.

We have made this for years, but with a few changes. I add chopped yellow onion when cooking the hamburger or ground turkey, then drain well. I also add raw, chopped red onion if it is sweet or Vidalia onion. I add a can or drained, but not rinsed Ranch style beans, and 2 chopped up avocados.

Right before serving, I take out about a third and save for later, then add crunched up nacho or ranch Doritos and Catalina dressing and stir well. I serve with a side of salsa and more dressing and chips.

Well, dang! Sounds like everybody in the whole wide world has been making this recipe for years and years! Except me. ? Thanks, Emily, for the recipe! Looks incredibly delish! Going to put this on the list so I can use up the last of my homegrown tomatoes of the season. ?

I have a recipe very similar to this. It has corn and black beans and the recipe as given used Thousands Island dressing which is very good. But now I make my own dressing with mayo, taco seasoning and ranch seasoning powder. And I take left overs to work with a tortilla and make a wrap. I also use grilled chicken sometimes instead of ground beef.

My aunt has been making this for years only she makes homemade french dressing with sugar oil apple cider vinegar and ketchup. I always thought it was a family recipe but I found out its not. But I have yet to find anyone who does the dressing like my aunts if you would like it feel free to send me an email and I can give it to you.

I plugged the nutritional info for one serving (which you have listed above) into the Weight Watchers calculator (online) and it says 1 serving is 5 smartpoints, not 4. Not sure what you did wrong, but you should probably fix this.

One of the changes Weight Watchers made in the switch to SmartPoints is that the recipe builder no longer counts the values of 0 SP fruits and vegetables when determining the final SP value for a recipe. Therefore, the SPs you get from the recipe builder may not match the SPs you get from running the nutrition information through the Weight Watchers SP calculator, because the nutrition information will contain the calories, etc from the fruits and vegetables.

An easy way to break your leaves apart on iceberg lettuce is give the core end a thump on the kitchen counter and it will break loose from the leaves. Just pull it out and take off as many lettuce leaves as you want. Love taco salad with doritos and I top it with Ranch dressing instead of sour cream.

We love taco salad. We use Pico De Gallo as our dressing, so fresh and much better for us. We also add black olives, corn, avocado and either rinsed black beans or refried beans. Sometimes we use the beans in place of the meat!

Great recipe, just like my Mom used to make. I added a can of black beans, chopped green pepper, and chopped white onion. I also used the TACO flavored Doritos. My boyfriend does not like Catalina dressing so I put spicy salsa on top of his, he LOVED it!!
Thanks for sharing Emily!

Made this last night for dinner but used black bean and corn salsa instead of dressing and we loved it. My partner likes a lot of meat so it was 2 servings instead of 4 main dish salads with no leftovers. I also cooked some green pepper in with the meat. So so good. So is this 8 points per main dish salad and 4 if you have it as a side? I was a little confused about that. Love the recipe and will definitely make again. Thanks.

Is it ok to use a less lean ground beef as 95% seems like a premium when serving multiple guests, heck, even if we wanted that consistency around here, nobody sells that lean of Ground Beef, not even the local butcher shop which sells it at 85% lean. (Better than other places of purchase though, such as Wal-Mart I suppose.) Please let me know what I can do to adjust the recipe, thanks in advance! ?

This is an awesome salad my sisterinlaw has made it for over 30 yrs now family parties get togethers you name it. She used to use cheese cubes in her salad now she uses shreded and she used to use regular lettuce now she uses the dole mixed salad with differant lettuces. She used to use french dressing now the catilina dressing. And always nacho flaverd doritos. I prefer the taco glaverd ones. She always brings every thing ready in indivual baggies, taco meat letuce cheese chips. Then assembles them at the party before serving so the salad is not saugie. My cousin makes the salad and puts kidney beans in hers.

I was planning to make this sometime this week for my lunch/dinner (I work at home but I still like to portion my meals ahead). Unfortunately, the lettuce around here lately is not looking terribly appetizing. Plus, I really love Broccoli. Do you think chopped raw broccoli would work in place of lettuce? I was thinking that putting the dressing, but not the doritos or cheese, in with the meat and broccoli and letting it rest a couple of hours would soften the broccoli and give it even more flavor. What do you think?

This is one of my favorite meals. I use salsa(black bean & corn to be exact) and creamy Italian dressing. And dice up a red bell pepper really fine, as well as sliced cherry tomatoes in halves, lettuce, cheese, taco seasoned ground meat, Doritos-so simple-so yummy!!!

In Nebraska we make this using Dorothy Lynch! It is so perfect for this salad. I also sauteed onions and cilantro with the ground beef. I used grape tomatoes sliced in half, and chopped a little green onion into it, and also threw in a little Maxican shredded cheese. Sometimes we add black olives too. YUM.

Fantastic salad! Only change I made was the addition of 1 can of pinto beans drained and rinsed of course. I used Wishbone Sweet and Spicy french dressing. If you are not going to use this up immediately, would suggest waiting with the dressing until it is plated up, or sogginess becomes an issue.

Made this for my family over the weekend, and everyone absolutely loved it! Added some salsa too as it seemed quite popular here in the comments section, which only made it better. As someone who really loves his tacos, this will be a forever staple in my recipe repertoire from now on. Muchas gracias!

Welcome to Emily Bites, a cooking blog proving that healthy can be delicious by offering lightened up recipes that never compromise on flavor. All recipes include Weight Watchers values and nutrition info!

A traditional caesar dressing made by your own hands is a great addition to any salad. Well, not ANY salad. It's great for a caesar salad. I feel like once you put the caesar dressing on the salad, it becomes a caesar salad. But maybe I'm wrong. Either way, this dressing is so fresh and creamy with a classic caesar salad.

I stopped buying dressings pretty much altogether in college. I was so broke that it made no sense to spend an extra $4 on ranch or Italian dressing just for a salad. It was so much more cost-effective to use olive oil and vinegar. Now, I just really don't like eating salad dressings because 9 times out of 10 they have like a bunch of added sugars and nonsense.

Don't get me wrong, I still love some Hidden Valley and some Kraft French dressing, but I just don't need that to make the salad. My preferences have just changed and there's something about a homemade vinaigrette or in this case, a caesar dressing that just works on the daily for me and the family.

First, add 2 egg yolks to a bowl and whisk until creamy about 2 minutes. You could also use an immersion blender for this, but I just whisked them together. Add the olive oil and whisk until well combined. Stir in the anchovies, worcestershire sauce, dijon mustard, and lemon juice until completely combined.

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