BEST Mexican Salad

I know, kind of a random blog topic but I had to share this recipe. It is from The Family Chef which is written by the personal chef to Jennifer Aniston. Of course that is why I bought it, duh. Also, is filled with recipes that are different than my usual type, meaning the kids hate them and they are heavy on vegetables. So the one I made tonight is adapted from "delicious, clean and healthy tostada". The tostada part was kind of a fail due to lack of ingredients available here. Achiote paste anyone? Nope, didn't think so. So I made fajita style chicken to put on this spicy black bean mixture on corn tortillas, all topped with this salad. As an aside, Emily told me the tostada smelled like "coin slot". I regret teaching her that phrase. I have digressed. But the salad was amazing and I had to eat the entire huge bowl myself because it was too good to throw away and too soggy to save.  I was literally eating it an hour after dinner was over. Seriously, Sean was disturbed to witness that. Followed it up with chocolate chip cookies, didn't want my body to go into shock from too many vegetables. Enough rambling, here you go:

1/4 head cabbage, thinly sliced
1/4 head lettuce, thinly sliced
1 bunch cilantro leaves, chopped
2 green onions sliced
2 tomatoes thinly sliced (I used grape tomatoes since I knew they would have flavor)
1/3 cup cotija cheese
1 avocado sliced
1/4 cup pickled red onion (recipe to follow)

Toss all together with a little juice from the pickled red onion and a little olive oil. Put on tostada or just eat from the big bowl like I did.

Pickled red onion:

1 red onion, thinly sliced

3/4 cup unseasoned rice vinegar

1/4 cup kosher salt

1/4 sugar

Mix everything together and let sit 10 minutes or overnight (mine sat for 2 days in the fridge). I really think this is key to the salad and why Sean wouldn't go near it.  His loss!