Southwest Salad - Trader Joe's

$3.49 per 8 oz Container

After a few trials of some not so good items from several restaurants, I've been staying home and giving the ready-made salads at the grocery stores a try.  Tonight, I had the Southwest Salad from Trader Joe's for dinner.  I found this salad quite filling and it could be good for my plan of detoxing myself since this salad was 100% veggies.  But did I enjoy it?  Not really.  I found the mix of veggies too much on the bitter side because of the shredded red cabbages and red onions.  I love red onions but when there were already the shredded red cabbages, there was just too much bitterness in the veggies.  The corn, diced red and green peppers would have helped if only there were more of them. The black beans however complimented the corn very well. The Mexican cotija cheese also added a nice touch.  I don't like red cabbage in my salad but I ate it because of its health benefits.  I think this salad would have been much better if only the accompanying bag of salad dressing wasn't also too much on the bitter and tart side. All I tasted from the salad dressing was tartness, bitterness, a little taste of salt and a hint of heat. I personally don't think this dressing worked with the salad too well since the salad  was also heavy on the tart side.  I wish they could add more sweetness to the dressing or to the veggie mix to balance out the tart and bitter flavors a little better.  The current bitter tone was too overpowering to my taste.