Taco Wedge Salad

I have a confession...Until tonight, I had never eaten a wedge salad.

Growing up I HATED salad. I thought lettuce tasted like dirt, that is still kind of true, and I didn't like salad dressing, also mostly true, so salads were a no go. I was in college before I started liking salad (thank you Cafe Rio). Then there was the whole kerfluffle about how iceberg lettuce is useless because it is like eating water. "There is no nutrition in it," is what everybody always said. And yes, that is sort of true, but water is good for you. Sure it pales in nutrition when compared to kale, or collard greens, or spinach, but it also isn't bad for you either. You can't live without water, am I right? Last reason, wedge salads typically include bacon and a creamy dressing making it a no go for me. I've been anti bacon since I was like 10.

So yesterday when I saw that I got iceberg lettuce in my produce co-op share, I almost swapped it for something else. But then that meant I had to go buy greens because I've almost used up my beet greens from my harvest and my kale just got hit with aphids this week. Sad day, but we had a good run. It always happens if I forget to harvest right before going out of town. The leaves get too big and the aphids can't resist. Anyway, back to iceberg lettuce.

So I almost swapped my lettuce for something else but decided to keep it. 'I can do lettuce wraps,' I thought to myself. That is what I usually do with iceberg lettuce. But as I was nursing my baby, I decided to do a little pinterest research on wedge salads. That was the only other useful thing I could think of to do. So I typed in 'vegan wedge salad' and for once, pinterest only produced about 5 usable results. Normally I had 100's of results. There was a BLT one using mushrooms - nope - I HATE mushrooms, there was a chickpea and tomato one, but that looked pretty boring, then there was a southwestern one. I thought to myself, 'Hey self, you are already planning a southwestern salad, why not combine the two?' 'Brilliant idea self. Let's do it,' and so I did.

This salad is seriously delicious, so easy to make, and fun to eat. Who know cutting up a salad with a knife and fork would be so fun. So I hope you make and enjoy this recipe.

Ingredients

1 head Iceberg Lettuce, washed and quartered into wedges

1 can black beans

1 can kidney beans

1 can garbanzo beans

2 c fresh or frozen corn

1 bunch cilantro, chopped

1 c salsa

1 Roma Tomato, diced

1 Sweet Potato, diced

*Tomatillo Sauce

*Not my recipe and I can't remember where I got it so I don't feel right posting it. But any tomatillo sauce/salsa/dressing or salsa verde would work*

Directions

1. **Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Wash, and dice sweet potato. Roast sweet potato for 40 minutes until soft.

2. Make tomatillo sauce (if making it).

3. To make bean mix, rinse and combine beans, corn, chopped cilantro, and salsa. Stir to combine and set aside.

4. Wash and quarter lettuce and dice tomato.

5. Once sweet potatoes are ready. Build you salad. I did a wedge base with a thin layer of tomatillo sauce, then I topped it with beans, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and more tomatillo sauce.

6. ENJOY

**I used my air fryer to cut down on time. It only took about 10-12 minutes.**