Simple Strawberry Salad (with Poppy Seed Dressing)

When I think Spring, one of the foods that come to mind is strawberries! This Simple Strawberry Salad is a great way to use strawberries in a healthy way, and eat them for dinner as well. No longer are you stuck with strawberries in smoothies, oatmeal, and other breakfast meals. Now you can have them for dinner too! I promise the kids won’t complain either.

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Why I Love This Recipe?

These summery flavors are an amazing way to pack a bunch of healthy foods into a meal without hating it in the end. I would call it a superfood, but that term has been used to death and applied to everything by now. So the ingredients are both healthy and tasty, which makes me and the family happy. Top it with this Homemade Poppy Seed Dressing and everything comes together fresh, vibrant, and delicious!

Ingredients & Equipment Needed to Make Strawberry Salad

Ingredients for Strawberry Salad

• Spinach (In a Bag!): Available in a bag at the grocery store, this is by far the easiest way to throw a salad together. Skip the chopping and washing, and just dump it out of the bag. I do recommend picking through the leaves briefly to remove any wilted ones.
• Spring Mix (In a Bag!): An optional addition, this will give you some leafy variety to chew on. This works really well if you need a bigger salad without any extra work.
• Strawberries: The critical ingredient. You will want to choose strawberries which are a normal size and bright red. By normal size I mean not the huge, golf ball size strawberries. Those are neat, but not as tasty. The smaller ones are packed with flavor and great for salads.
• A vegetable (Yellow Pepper, Tomato, Etc): Leaving this open to what sounds good. I usually use tomatoes or bell peppers, but use your imagination or what you have on hand. I would suggest avoiding the “wetter” vegetables such as zucchini and cucumber.
• Goat Cheese Crumbles: This is the perfect sharp flavor to contrast with the sweetness of the strawberries and the dressing. The crumbles are a bit cheaper and save you the task of crumbling it yourself!
• Seeds or Nuts: These give a nice crunch to the salad and a nice texture change. I suggest pumpkin seed kernels, pine nuts, cashews, etc. Any meaty nut will do wonderfully.

Equipment Need to Make This Strawberry Salad

• Salad Spinner: Essential tool for cleaning lettuce that didn’t come in a bag. Rinse, Spin, rinse the bowl and use it to serve everything. All in all, the salad spinner really makes salad preparation much simpler.
• Salad Tongs: Great for tossing the salad and mixing everything up, as well as serving it.
• Salad Bowl: If you don’t have a salad spinner, a big mixing bowl will be necessary to combine the ingredients.
• Cutting Board: Something to chop everything on. Strawberries, vegetables, and lettuce if you went the whole lettuce route.
• Paring Knife: My second most used knife. Great for the delicate work of cutting the strawberries down to size. Same with the peppers. Keep it good and sharp and paring fruits and vegetables will be a breeze.

Preparation

Preparing the Strawberry Spinach Salad

1. Chop the strawberries and vegetables to be nearly the same size. Strawberries are best if you chop the top and then quarter them, assuming they arent huge. Set them aside.
2. If your lettuce didn’t come pre-washed in a bag, or you are extra cautious like us, chop and wash your lettuce. Chopping it down first make washing quick and thorough, and it is virtually impossible without a salad spinner. Again, I suggest getting one if you like salads from scratch.
3. Combine the lettuce mix, strawberries, vegetables, nuts/seeds, and goat’s cheese in the bowl and toss with dressing to mix. I have not mastered this yet, so the seeds and dressing can end up on the bottom of the bowl. Alternatively, you can combine small portions of everything in single servings so get it just right.

What About Salad Dressing?

I wholeheartedly suggest our Creamy Poppy Seed Dressing. It works wonderfully with these flavors and is a nice thick version of poppy seed dressing, which I am very happy to tell everyone about! Other dressings such as ranch, blue cheese, or a sweeter vinaigrette will also work rather nicely if poppy seed dressing isn’t your thing.

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