Perfect Spring Salad

By Maria Lichty

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223 Comments
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Quick Summary

Spring salad with roasted asparagus, artichokes, avocado, cucumber, radishes, fresh herbs, and a simple lemon dressing. The perfect healthy salad that goes great with any spring meal!

Spring Salad Recipe

We are finally getting some true spring weather and that makes me very happy because winter and I don’t get a long. I am excited for sunshine, fresh air, flowers, and my favorite spring foods.

When I was flipping through my friend Gaby’s new gorgeous cookbook, What’s Gaby Cooking: Everyday California Food, I stopped on her spring Cobb salad and made it immediately. It is the perfect spring salad and made me even more excited for spring! It screams spring!

Spring Salad

In Gaby’s book, she has a salad chapter with Cobb salads for all seasons. These aren’t your traditional Cobb salads, they are updated Cobb salads stuffed with all kinds of fabulous ingredients and flavors. I want to make them all, but first up is the spring salad because it is spring! Perfect timing because this salad has all of my favorites in one big bowl!

The spring Cobb salad is made with the following ingredients:

  • roasted asparagus
  • artichokes
  • avocado
  • cucumber
  • radishes
  • dill
  • mint

The salad also has an AMAZING lemon-champagne vinaigrette that really makes the salad shine.

Easy Spring Salad

Tips for Making the Perfect Spring Salad

  • I love all of the GREEN!! The base of the salad is gem lettuce, but you can also use butter lettuce, both work well.
  • Roasting asparagus is easy, you can use this roasted asparagus recipe, just omit the balsamic vinegar and only use the olive oil. It will roast up in no time!
  • Use the small Persian cucumbers for this salad. They are SO good! If you can’t find them, you can use regular cucumbers, they will still be tasty.
  • Use canned artichoke hearts. Drain the artichoke hearts and cut in half. You can also buy quartered artichoke hearts to keep things super simple.
  • Don’t skip the herbs. The fresh mint and dill really make this salad pop! You will love the refreshing flavors the herbs bring to the salad.
  • The lemon-champagne vinaigrette is easy to whisk up and can be made in advance. It will keep in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
  • If you want to bulk the salad up for a main meal, you can add chicken, shrimp, fish, chickpeas, or white beans.
  • This salad is vegan, gluten-free, and vegetarian. If you want to add feta or goat cheese, you certainly could, but I think it is perfect without it.

This is a great meal prep salad. You can have everything ready to go, just don’t add the avocado or dressing until you are ready to eat. Everything else can be prepped and ready to go in the fridge. It is a great salad to take to work or to eat on the go!

Celebrate spring with the Perfect Spring Salad! You will LOVE every bite!

Healthy Spring Salad

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Main Dishes

Perfect Spring Salad

This fresh and beautiful salad is the perfect salad for spring! It goes well with any meal!
4.70 from 20 votes
PrintSave RecipeReview
Prep Time 10 minutes
Total Time 10 minutes
Cuisine American
Servings 8

Ingredients
  

For the salad:

  • 8 heads little gem lettuce, bottom 1-inch trimmed off and separated into leaves (you can also use butter lettuce)
  • 4 Persian cucumbers, thinly sliced
  • 1 Easter radish, very thinly sliced (or 3 regular radishes thinly sliced)
  • 1 ripe avocado, pitted, peeled, and thinly sliced
  • 3 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
  • 3 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
  • 8 canned artichoke hearts, drained and halved
  • 12 ounces roasted asparagus, cut into 2-inch pieces

For the Lemon-Champagne Vinaigrette:

  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • 1 tablespoon champagne vinegar
  • 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
  • 1 shallot, finely chopped
  • 1/3 cup olive oil
  • Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper to taste

Instructions
 

  • For the salad: Arrange the lettuce leaves in a large salad bowl. Top with the sliced cucumbers, radish, avocado, dill, mint, artichoke hearts, and roasted asparagus.
  • For the dressing: Combine all the ingredients in a small bowl and whisk to combine. Adjust the salt and pepper as needed.
  • Drizzle the dressing over the salad and toss. Season with salt and black pepper. Serve immediately.

Notes

The dressing will keep in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

Nutrition

Calories: 159kcal, Carbohydrates: 10g, Protein: 4g, Fat: 13g, Saturated Fat: 2g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 2g, Monounsaturated Fat: 9g, Sodium: 17mg, Potassium: 663mg, Fiber: 5g, Sugar: 3g, Vitamin A: 5878IU, Vitamin C: 13mg, Calcium: 82mg, Iron: 3mg

Have you tried this recipe?

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Maria

I'm Maria and my husband is Josh. We share a love of cooking, baking, and entertaining. We enjoy creating recipes that are simple, fresh, and family friendly. We love sitting around the table with good food, good conversation, and good friends and family! Our kitchen is always open!
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Comments

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  22. Such a pretty salad! Even more so when it is (still!) snowing here in wisconsin. On April 18th. Sigh….

    Reply

  24. Such a delicious looking salad…I just love Gaby too. Would love to win her cookbook! Thanks for the chance to win!

    Reply

  34. I NEED this salad in my life and that cook book. Not going to lie Gaby has inspired me to grow my cookbook collection with her AMAZING cookbook shelf… would love to add hers to my slowly growing collection!!

    Reply

  44. I wish we were having some Spring weather here in PA! This looks delicious. I love roasted asparagus!

    Reply

  48. I love salads. They are my favorite and I can’t wait until fresh summer produce starts coming in.

    Reply

  50. This salad looks so yummy! I’m not much of a salad person in the winter but now that’s it’s spring, give me all the salad!

    Reply

  52. I love the idea of this salad, but with some protein please! These types of salad fill me up short-term, but when there is meat, nuts, seeds, egg or cheese, it keeps me full until my next meal. Gorgeous photos!

    Reply

  59. This salad looks absolutely AMAZING! I can’t wait to try it!
    I would so LOVE, LOVE, LOVE (!!!!) to win this ‘What’s Gaby Cooking’ cookbook!
    Gaby’s recipes have definitely inspired me to cook more often. Love her!

    Reply

  67. This salad is gorgeous! I’m gonna substitute fiddleheads for the asparagus if they ever come this spring in New England! Thanks for the great recipes!

    Reply

  68. Fantastic looking salad (and cookbook!)! I totally agree- don’t skip the herbs! Nothing more delightful than a bite of fresh mint or basil in a salad 🙂

    Reply

  76. This salad looks great. Can’t wait to give it a try! Thanks for sharing the recipe. Would love to win the cookbook! It sounds and looks amazing! Thanks for the opportunity to win.

    Reply

  77. This looks delicious.  I can’t wait to try it.  Are the artichokes in oil or water?   This looks like a Summer go to!! 

    Reply

  85. I’m off to the store to purchase all the ingredients for this salad. It will be soup and salad for dinner tonight as it is still chilly in NJ.

    Reply

  92. Spring arrived for 2 hours last Saturday in New England. Now it’s back to January! SO ready for that yummy-sounding Spring Salad!!

    Reply

  103. This salad looks amazing! Right up my alley with all the beautiful veggies. I would love to win a copy of this cookbook!!! All her recipes are great! 

    Reply

  104. This salad looks amazing and right up my alley with all the beautiful veggies!!! Gaby is so awesome! 

    Reply

  114. Thanks for the giveaway. I used to love radishes as a kid. I have no idea why I don’t eat them much as an adult. This recipe might be a good place to start.

    Reply

  116. I love meals that are easy to meal prep. And salads are the best because you truly can swap out so many things to make a salad that is JUST RIGHT for you or your guests. Your post makes me so excited that Spring has sprung this week! Definitely going to try this salad out.

    Reply

  117. I am from California (born in Santa Maria, raised in Santa Cruz, and went to college in San Francisco), but I have not been back to my home state since 2004. We lived in Virginia, then Australia, and now Texas. Would love to try some of the recipes in this book and travel back (in my head anyway) to those glory days of the past.

    Reply

  127. I love a big salad for dinner in spring and summer and crave fresh ingredients. The cookbook looks like a winner!

    Reply

  142. Oh my gosh, the salad. Have added items to my grocery list. This will be on our table Sunday. Beautiful!

    Reply

  146. 5 stars
    I love the colors of this deliious Spring Salad!! Perfect for Saturday get togethers! You’re recipes are always ah-mazing!!!!
    Thanks for the Give Away Contest! I would LOVE to win your cook book!
    Please pick me to win!!!!

    Reply

  152. Now that there is an expanded romaine lettuce recall, looks like this salad is the perfect way to enjoy salad!

    Reply

  155. This salad looks yummy. I can’t wait to try it. I love the springtime because you can get gobs of asparagus.

    Reply

  157. Just started following your site.  It’s fabulous.  Love the recipes and you weekly this and that!  Thanks

    Reply

  166. 5 stars
    I love Cobb salads so a version for every season sounds pretty amazing to me! This spring Cobb salad was absolutely to die for. Made it already. 🙂

    Reply

  172. I got this book for a fellow dietitian and nearly decided to keep it at the last minute! What a gorgeous book. 

    Reply

  182. California cooking is the best! They have the best fresh, local ingredients! This salad looks amazing! Thanks for the giveaway!

    Reply

  195. I would love to win this book! I actually went looking for it yesterday at the Amazon store and couldn’t find it! Thanks!

    Reply

  197. I love to try new recipes – so much so that I rarely make the same thing twice! Is that bad???? This salad and cookbook look amazing! 

    Reply

  204. Can’t wait to make this salad for Easter dinner. Even if we have to wear masks and gloves.

    Reply

  208. Can’t wait to try it this weekend. Sounds so refreshing and light . Serving with Alison Roman’s Buttered Salmon with Red onions, Capers and Dill.

    Reply

  210. Please tell me the # of servings so I know if I need to double or even triple the recipe for 20 people at my Passover seder?

    Reply

  211. I absolutely hate when all the comments are about how good something looks opposed to how good it is. Not helpful.

    Reply

  214. 4 stars
    I made this hearty salad for my husband and myself for dinner. The asparagus (which I roasted in our air fryer) and artichoke hearts add a tasty dimension. I added less mint because I find it can overpower a dish. We added walnuts which tasted good. It was very filling.

    Reply

  215. 5 stars
    At my Uncle’s funeral luncheon one of the ladies made this salad. I went back for fifths. It was so good I asked for the recipe. She gave me the link. I’ll be making this again and again. I’d never tried butter lettuce before. Other people in my area must like it to because it was sold out.

    Reply