Vegetarian Frito Salad with Catalina Dressing

Vegetarian Frito salad is one of the quickest & tastiest salads you will ever throw together! Frito salad has a crispy romaine lettuce base, chunks of cheddar cheese, corn, beans, juicy tomatoes, jalapenos (if you dare), and topped with crunchy corn chips and Catalina french dressing.

YUM!

At my house we refer to vegetarian Frito Salad as a “poor man” taco salad… but believe me, even though this is an incredibly budget-friendly recipe–it’s a salad packed with flavor and texture! It’s a hit at parties and family gatherings too!

How to Make Vegetarian Frito Salad

Every time I make this vegetarian Frito salad my husband gets seconds–sometimes thirds! It’s one of his absolute favorites and mine as well! While you can add 1/2 a pound of taco-seasoned ground beef or turkey, we like to keep it simple and cost-effective and rely on the black beans for protein.

Prep the Salad Ingredients

Wash and chop your romaine lettuce. Rinse the canned black beans and corn until the water is clear. Chop the tomatoes, cheese, and peppers.

Add The Salad Toppings Together

Add the lettuce to a large bowl and top the salad with all the ingredients. You can either dump all the ingredients into the bowl or layer the salad if desired (see notes on how to layer the Vegetarian Frito salad).

Toss the Salad

If desired, toss the salad to incorporate the ingredients. I find that a lot of the ingredients fall to the bottom of the bowl when I toss the salad, so make sure to scoop the salad

Top The Vegetarian Frito Salad with Fritos + Catalina Dressing

To avoid the corn chips from getting soggy, I typically serve the corn chips in a separate bowl. Drizzle salads individually with Catalina Dressing (or a salad dressing of your choice–see my alternative suggestions below).

Vegetarian Frito Salad Ingredients

I generally like to keep this salad as flavorful as possible and as budget-friendly as possible. That means choosing ingredients to add the maximum amount of flavor possible.

Romaine Lettuce

Romaine lettuce typically offers the most bang for your buck at the grocery store! It also has a wonderfully crunchy bite to it, which is perfect in this salad! You can also swap out romaine lettuce for iceberg lettuce if you like.

Black Beans

Use one 15oz can of thoroughly rinsed black beans in this recipe. But honestly, we swap between using pinto beans and black beans, honestly, it’s all about whatever is in your pantry or what you prefer.

Corn

Obviously, 2 ears of fresh corn are going to taste the best, BUT I make this recipe all the time in the winter when corn on the cob is difficult to find and or REALLY pricey. Just use a can of corn–it’ll be great! I swap in this easy pantry shortcut all the time! Just make sure that the can of corn has been rinsed.

Corn Chips

I swear this blog is not sponsored by ALDI, but I love the ALDI corn chips. You can get the whole bag for so cheap– and they taste just like the name brand for a fraction of the price. Generic corn chips are pretty easy to find and a big budget saver.

Tomatoes

I like to use Roma tomatoes since you can buy them by the piece and they are generally pretty inexpensive. They add a nice pop to our salad.

Jalapeno

We like to add a few de-seeded jalapeno peppers to our salad, but it’s completely optional. You can also sub in chopped green pepper if you are feeding this salad to kiddos.

Sharp Cheddar Cheese

Sharp cheddar is my personal favorite blocked cheese to use. It adds so much flavor per bite, but you can swap it out for your favorite cheese like pepper jack, mild cheddar, or Colby jack. For an easier prep, swap shredded cheese instead of the block.

Catalina Dressing

Trust me. It sounds weird to add French dressing to a taco salad but boy is it good stuff. If you shop at ALDI the California French is the dressing you want.

Suggested Salad Dressings

I adore Catalina dressing on Frito salad, but I have tons of other ideas if that is not your favorite– or if you are looking to use up a dressing that you already have in your fridge.

Overall, this salad works best with either a tangy or creamy dressing. Like ranch or French.

• Plain old ranch dressing
• Salsa Ranch: Mix 1/2 parts of ranch dressing with 1/2 parts your favorite salsa for a salsa ranch
• Lime Vinaigrette
• Cilantro Lime Dressing

Additional Add-Ons & Variations

Additional Toppings

• Add Green Pepper
  • Especially if you are serving this salad to kids, or if you don’t love spice, substitute a green bell pepper in your salad instead.
• Add 1/2 pound of Taco Meat
  • Looking to add meat in or use up some leftover taco meat? 1/2 pound of taco-seasoned ground turkey or ground beef will work perfectly!
• Add Avocado
  • If you are eating this salad soon you can also add on avocados– they might start to brown if you have this salad for leftovers.
• Add Black Olives
  • The PA Dutch in me likes to add black olives to Mexican and southwestern food (I think Midwesterners do this too–haha)! It’s not everybody’s cup of tea (like my husband for example). I grew up in a family where it was 100% expected to have olives in our tacos and didn’t know that wasn’t so common until later in life. But personally, I do love sliced black olives in this salad. Sometimes I will add them to ours–or have them on the side to add individually.
• Use Pinto Beans
  • If you don’t love black beans, try adding pinto beans or kidney beans to the salad. Either one will be great!

Layered Salad Variation

My mom used to make a similar layered frito salad to bring to our family’s Christmas meal. We have a big family–my dad had 6 siblings and I had lots of cousins. This salad was always a hit, especially amongst the MANY teenage boys.

Here’s how to do it!: Add your lettuce to the bowl, top with beans, then the corn, then the tomatoes, peppers, cheese, and finally the Fritos. Place the dressing options on the side.

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