Taco Salad Dippers

Hundred degrees again and the slow cooker is off duty. In July I eat cold: chicken salad, fruit, cold sandwiches, anything that does not require turning on a heat source in a truck cab that is already functioning as a sauna. I packed the mini fridge on Monday with hard-boiled eggs, chicken salad made Sunday night, grapes, cheese sticks, and a gallon of sweet tea that I finished by noon because hydration in Nebraska July is not optional, it is survival.

The kids are deep in summer mode. Amber is reading her way through the library. Tyler is working on a go-kart engine Dave brought home from somewhere, and the garage smells like motor oil and ambition. Justin is playing summer football and comes home every evening drenched in sweat and radiating the specific calmness that only physical exhaustion produces. Josie is the garden queen, harvesting tomatoes and peppers daily, and the garden is producing more than we can eat.

I made fresh salsa from the garden tomatoes and peppers this week. Diced tomatoes, jalapeno from the garden, onion, cilantro, lime juice, salt. Mixed in a bowl and served with tortilla chips, and the kids ate it like it was candy, which tells you how good fresh garden salsa is. It is good. It is the kind of good that makes you question why you ever bought salsa in a jar, which you will still buy because it is January and the garden is dead, but right now, in July, the garden is alive and the salsa is fresh and the chips are salty and life is simple and good.

For dinner I made a cold supper: a big platter of sliced deli ham, cheese, crackers, carrot sticks, cherry tomatoes from the garden, and the salsa with chips. No cooking. No oven. No heat. Just food arranged on a platter and eaten at a table where the fan is running and the windows are open and the evening air is ninety degrees but feels better than the afternoon air, which was a hundred, and everything is relative, especially temperature, especially in Nebraska.

Dave said he likes cold supper nights. I said I like not standing over a stove in July. We agreed. This is how we make decisions: we agree. We have been agreeing for twelve years. The thermostat is the only thing we disagree on, and that is seasonal, and it keeps the marriage interesting.

Josie’s garden tomatoes and jalapenos are the whole reason this week worked as well as it did, and once I saw how fast the kids demolished that bowl of fresh salsa with chips, I knew I had to build a real meal around it instead of just a side. Taco Salad Dippers are exactly that—all the flavors of a taco night, no heat required, served in a way that lets everyone grab what they want without me standing at a stove in hundred-degree weather. It’s the cold supper platter idea taken one step further, and it disappears fast.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Total Time: 20 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

1 lb cooked rotisserie chicken, shredded (or leftover chicken)
1 cup fresh garden salsa (see below) or store-bought pico de gallo
1 cup shredded romaine lettuce
1 cup shredded cheddar or Mexican blend cheese
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup guacamole or 1 ripe avocado, diced
1/2 cup canned black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup corn kernels (fresh, canned, or thawed frozen)
1/4 cup sliced black olives (optional)
1/4 cup pickled jalapeno slices (optional)
1 bag thick tortilla chips, for serving
For the fresh garden salsa:
3 medium garden tomatoes, diced small
1 jalapeno, seeded and minced
1/4 cup white or red onion, finely diced
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
Juice of 1 lime
1/2 tsp salt, or to taste

Instructions

Make the salsa. Combine diced tomatoes, jalapeno, onion, cilantro, lime juice, and salt in a bowl. Stir and taste for seasoning. Let it sit at least 10 minutes so the flavors come together. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
Prep the chicken. Shred or chop the rotisserie chicken into bite-sized pieces. If you like, toss it with a tablespoon of taco seasoning or a squeeze of lime juice for extra flavor.
Arrange the platter. On a large serving board or platter, arrange the chicken, salsa, lettuce, cheese, sour cream, guacamole, black beans, corn, olives, and jalapenos in separate sections or small bowls. Pile the tortilla chips along the edges or in a separate basket.
Serve cold. Set the platter on the table and let everyone build their own loaded chip scoops. No utensils required—just chips and whatever toppings you like.
Store leftovers. Keep components in separate airtight containers in the refrigerator. Salsa keeps for up to 3 days. Chicken keeps for up to 4 days. Re-assemble as needed.

Nutrition (per serving)

Taco Salad Dippers — The No-Cook Summer Platter That Saved July