Creamy homemade avocado-cilantro dressing is the perfect compliment to this Southwestern inspired salad filled with color, texture, and flavor. 

A beautiful Southwestern style salad with sections of roasted chickpeas, radish, corn, tomatoes, red onion, and cilantro. A jar of avocado dressing and bowl of tortilla crisps on the side. This Southwest salad is naturally vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free.

This time a few years ago I posted what’s become one of my most popular salad recipes: Viva La Fiesta Vegetarian Taco Salad. It’s Fiesta once again in Santa Barbara, which means the streets, hair, shops, everything is covered in confetti. I took the girls to one of the smaller carnivals yesterday to try some of the games. $30 later there were no prizes won, to the girls’ disappointment. Their smiles quickly returned with a couple of shave ices, though.

This Southwestern-inspired salad with sweet corn, tomatoes, carrot, crunchy romaine and flavorful roasted chickpeas was the perfect healthy end to a sugar-filled day. I’ve been enjoying this one a lot this summer when we just want a salad for dinner. For the parents who ask if my kids will really eat salads like this for dinner… Here’s the deal. My kiddos love all the components of a salad like this from the roasted chickpeas to the veggies, so I keep them separate for them. If I were to toss it together with the dressing it would be a big fat “nope” from them. There a some tips and variations for this Southwestern salad with chickpeas and avocado dressing, so let’s look at how to make it!