Prior to starting AIP, Mexican food used to be my most favorite food. Yes I would chose that even over Indian any day! Of course Indian food would be a close second! And then when I started AIP, it became challenging to eat both of these cuisines since tomatoes and night shade spices are the highlight of both Mexican and Indian food!
But as they say ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ and that’s how I still managed to make my curries and AIP-ized enough Indian recipes to write my own AIP Indian Fusion cookbook! Mexican dishes also slowly started appearing on my menu in the form of my favorite dishes – Chicken Burrito Bowl . , Shrimp Burrito Bowl , Shrimp tacos
One of my other favorite dishes when we used to eat at Mexican restaurants used to be a Chicken tortilla salad! This salad used to have spicy grilled chicken along with lots of other toppings like shredded lettuce, pico de gallo, avocados, tomatoes and crispy fried tortilla strips!
The other day I was suddenly reminded of this dish while munching on my favorite grain free chips – Siete Brand’s cassava chips! It suddenly dawned on me that I could just use these instead of tortilla strips! These were not only baked but also grain free! They do have chia seeds in them so they are not AIP. By the way, this is not a paid endorsement! I just love these cassava chips so much! If you cannot eat chia seeds, you can make your own AIP chips using this recipe. Or you can also use left over homemade cassava tortillas and cut them into strips and bake them to get crispy tortilla strips!
What really makes this salad is the creamy avocado cilantro dressing that works as both a sauce and a creamy dressing! So yum! You can definitely add other veggies too to the salad like scallions, and carrots etc. I just add red onion slices and its perfect for me!
- 2 boneless, skinless chicken thighs (or breasts), thawed to room temperature
- ½ tsp sea salt
- ½ tsp cumin powder (omit for AIP)
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- ½ tsp dried oregano
- 1 tbsp lemon or lime juice
- ½ tsp ground black pepper or Kashmiri red chilli powder (Omit for AIP)
- 1 tbsp avocado oil
- ¼ cup avocado oil for pan frying
- ½ of a ripe avocado
- 1 green chilli pepper (omit for AIP)
- 1 tbsp lime juice or lemon juice
- ½ cup fresh cilantro, chopped
- 1 garlic clove
- ¼ tsp sea salt
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup shredded lettuce
- ¼ th of a small red onion, thinly sliced
- Siete brand Cassava chips (use homemade AIP cassava crackers for AIP option) - about 10-12 chips
- in a large mixing bowl, add all of the marinade ingredients except the chicken and mix using a spoon to form a paste. Add the chicken pieces to the bowl and using your hands coat them well with the marinade. Let sit for 10-15 minutes before pan frying.
- Heat a stainless steel pan and when hot, add the oil. Next add the chicken pieces and cook on medium heat for about 5 minutes(4 minutes for chicken breast) until it is crisp on the bottom. Flip and cook on the other side for about 4 minutes (2 minutes for chicken breast) and transfer to a plate and let rest for 5-10 minutes covered. Just before serving the salad, slice the chicken.
- While the chicken is cooking, you can make the dressing. Add all the dressing ingredients into a food processor and blend until really fine and creamy. You can add more water if needed to adjust dressing consistency.
- In a serving plate, spread the lettuce and the onions. Add the chicken pieces and arrange the chips / crackers on top! Drizzle the avocado dressing on top!
