This is a chopped salad built on romaine, black beans, corn, tomato, red onion, avocado, rotisserie chicken and cotija, and then the whole bowl gets a green chile cilantro vinaigrette that is quietly the reason to make it. It serves four, it takes twenty minutes, and nothing goes on the stove.

What makes a chopped salad a chopped salad is the knife. Everything gets cut down to about the same spoon size, so every forkful has all of it at once, and that's why a chopped salad eats like a meal where a tossed salad eats like a side. Cut small, dress it in the bowl, and you'll get the best version of this on the first try!

Cut everything to spoon size

Aim for pieces around half an inch. Chop the romaine across the ribs rather than tearing it, quarter the tomatoes instead of halving them, slice the red onion thin and then cut those slices again so nobody ends up with a long strap of raw onion, cube the avocado, and shred or cube the chicken small.

Corn and black beans are already the right size, and they're the reason the cut matters as much as it does. Leave the lettuce in big pieces and the beans and corn sink to the bottom of the bowl, so you eat a plain salad and then a spoonful of beans at the end. Cut everything small and it all stays suspended together, which is the whole pleasure of the dish.

Dry the lettuce properly before any of that. Wet leaves repel oil, so the dressing slides off and pools at the bottom of the bowl. A salad spinner or a clean towel will do it, and it's worth being thorough.

Dress the bowl first

Put the romaine in the mixing bowl on its own and toss it with a light drizzle of vinaigrette while it's the only thing in there. Coat the leaves, then pile everything else on top of them.

That does two useful things at once. The extra dressing stays behind in the bowl instead of riding out on the salad, so you can't really over dress it, and the leaves get coated evenly rather than the top third of the bowl getting all of it.

Avocado and tomato go on after the toss. Both of them bruise, and tomato lets go of water that thins the dressing out, so they're better sitting on top than tumbling around. If you're cutting the avocado more than a few minutes ahead, toss the cubes with a little of the lime juice. The cotija goes on at the very end, scattered over everything, because it's a dry salty crumbling cheese and it should stay in crumbs you can see instead of getting worked into the dressing.

The vinaigrette, and why it holds

Half a cup of olive oil to two tablespoons of white wine vinegar and a tablespoon of lime juice is a little sharper than the standard three parts oil to one part acid, and that's right for a salad carrying chicken, cheese, avocado and beans. Rich food wants a dressing with some edge on it.

The Dijon in there isn't a flavoring, it's an emulsifier, and one teaspoon is what keeps the blended dressing from splitting back into oil and vinegar in the fridge, so don't leave it out. The teaspoon of honey is in there for the chile, balancing the heat and the vinegar without making the dressing sweet.

Blend it instead of whisking it. A food processor, or a jar and an immersion blender, breaks the oil into smaller droplets, and that's what keeps it emulsified for the full week it lives in the fridge. A whisked vinaigrette separates in an hour.

One tablespoon of roasted green chile in half a cup of oil gives you a warm background rather than real heat. If you want the chile to be the point, take it up to two or three tablespoons. The emulsion holds fine either way, because the mustard is doing that job, and our chile already carries lime juice, so the extra acid is right in keeping with it.

The recipe makes more dressing than the salad needs, which I'd call a feature rather than a quirk. It's wonderful on grain bowls and roasted vegetables, it makes a good marinade for chicken thighs, and it keeps about a week in a jar with a tight lid.

Making it ahead, in parts

This is a great salad to prep and a poor one to store already dressed, so keep the parts separate and put it together when you sit down.

The dressing holds up to a week in the refrigerator. It'll thicken when it's cold, so let the jar sit out for ten minutes and shake it. The chopped vegetables, meaning the lettuce, onion, corn and beans, hold two or three days in separate covered containers, and the lettuce keeps better with a paper towel in with it. Cooked chicken is 3 to 4 days refrigerated, per USDA guidance for cooked poultry. Cut the avocado and tomato the day you're going to eat it, and everything else can wait.

For packed lunches, build the jar upside down: dressing in the bottom, then beans and corn, then chicken, then lettuce on top, with the avocado in a separate twist of foil. Tip it out and shake it at the table.

About the chicken

The recipe calls for rotisserie chicken on purpose. This is a twenty minute salad, and poaching and cooling chicken breast is the step that would quietly turn it into an hour.

Thick cut deli chicken works just as well. So does leftover roast chicken, or grilled steak if you want it heavier, or nothing at all if the black beans are carrying the protein for you, and two cups of beans is plenty to do that.

Where the chile fits

The chile goes into the dressing rather than into the salad itself, which is the efficient place for it. A single tablespoon reaches every bite through the vinaigrette, where that same tablespoon scattered across four servings of salad would mostly disappear.

Medium is the default. The recipe note suggests Hot if you want more, and in a dressing with honey and oil in it the heat lands gentler than you'd expect.

The chile here is our 16 oz jars of flame roasted Hatch green chile, Medium or Hot, four ingredients: Hatch chile, salt, garlic, lime juice. A tablespoon at a time means a jar lasts a good long while, so the rest of it ends up in green chile stew or beer queso. Frozen in 5 lb bags is the same chile in volume if you cook this way often, and the substitutions guide covers what to reach for if you can't get Hatch chile where you are.

And if you want these same flavors hot instead of cold, that shredded chicken goes straight into enchiladas with green chile enchilada sauce. The rest of the recipe archive is free!

If it went soggy, or the dressing split

Soggy is almost always one of two things: lettuce that went into the bowl wet, or a salad that sat around already dressed. Dressed lettuce is soft within an hour and no fun at all by the next day, so if people are eating in shifts, dress only what's going onto plates right now and leave the rest of the bowl dry.

If the dressing separated in the fridge, it was either whisked rather than blended or it's missing the Dijon. Blend it again with the mustard in it and it comes back together. And if it came out of the fridge thick and sludgy, that's just cold olive oil behaving like cold olive oil, so give it ten minutes on the counter and shake the jar hard.

Common questions

What makes a salad a chopped salad?

It's the cut. Everything goes to roughly the same half inch size so every forkful has all of the ingredients at once, rather than lettuce in one bite and beans in the next.

How do I keep a chopped salad from getting soggy?

Dry the lettuce thoroughly, dress it in the mixing bowl before the other ingredients go in, and don't dress it until you're serving it.

Why does a vinaigrette need Dijon mustard?

Mustard is an emulsifier. It's what keeps the oil and vinegar together in the fridge instead of separating within the hour.

How long does green chile vinaigrette keep?

About a week refrigerated in a jar with a tight lid. It thickens cold, so let it sit out briefly and shake it.

How spicy is green chile cilantro vinaigrette?

It's mild. One tablespoon of chile in half a cup of oil is a warm background note. Use two or three tablespoons, or the Hot chile, if you want it forward.

Can I make a chopped salad ahead for lunches?

Yes, in parts. Dressing up to a week, chopped vegetables two or three days in separate containers, cooked chicken 3 to 4 days. Cut the avocado and tomato the day you eat it.

Do I have to use rotisserie chicken?

No, and leftover roast chicken, thick cut deli chicken, grilled steak or nothing at all all work. Two cups of black beans carries it on its own.

The short version

Cut everything to half an inch and dry the lettuce well. Toss the lettuce by itself in the bowl with the dressing, pile everything else on, and finish with cotija. Avocado and tomato go on last and get cut the day you serve. Blend the vinaigrette rather than whisking it, keep the Dijon in it, and make the whole batch, because it keeps a week and you'll want it on everything else too.