My family doesn’t always love when I am on the dieting bandwagon. I do my best to make things that everyone will like, but let’s face it: Big steaks and baked potatoes laden with butter and sour cream have made a screaming exit from our dinner rotation, and that’s kinda sad for Mr. Meat and Potatoes. Lately, I’ve tried to make some things that can be modified to fit my dieting needs but that won’t cramp everyone else’s collective style.

For example, I try to turn a lot of our regular meals into salads. Salads aren’t that boring if you change them up often and make inventive and delicious choices.

I purchased some thin-cut top round steaks recently, thinking that we could get a steak fix without tempting me to go over budget on calories and fat. This was a great fajita choice for several reasons. First, thin steak cooks in a flash, so it makes for a quick weeknight dinner. Second, I could put together all the pieces and people could assemble them as they saw fit. For me, that meant a salad. For everyone else, it mean chips or tortilla wrappers or whatever flipped their skirts up.

I must say, a fajita salad is pretty fun, and delicious, not to mention quick to prepare.

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Fiesta Fajita Salad

Mixed greens — I used mostly spinach and a little romaine
1 bag frozen pepper and onion strips
Handful of grape or cherry tomatoes
1/8 teaspoon cumin
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
Kosher salt
Pepper
2 thin top-round steaks
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1/3 cup salsa (plus more as needed for garnish)
2 tablespoons prepared ranch salad dressing
Cheese
Tortilla chips and/or flour tortillas
Olive oil, for sauteeing

Mix the spices together and rub on both sides of both steaks. Drizzle a bit of olive oil in a frying pan and preheat on high.

Toss each steak in for just a minute on each side, until brown. Don’t overcook! It will turn quickly to shoe leather.

Mix your greens in a bowl and set aside.

In another skillet, warm a tablespoon of olive oil and dump in the bag of peppers and onions. Halve the tomatoes and toss them in as well. Over medium heat, saute until peppers and onions are translucent and tomatoes are warm and juicy.

Rinse your beans and set them aside.

Mix together the salsa and ranch dressing for “fiesta” salad dressing.

I did this like a taco bar. To assemble my salad, I started with greens, then peppers and onions, a few strips of steak, then I crumbled a few blue corn chips on top of everything, sprinkled on some black beans, and gave it a drizzle of dressing. I also threw on a few cubes of cheddar as I think that helps me limit my cheese intake better than shredded.

I think it took about 15 minutes to make this whole meal, and it was visually pleasing as well as delicious.

Bonus: Individualized meals for those who still ingest carbs with relative abandon.