Strawberry Spinach Salad
Published on April 21, 2023
Quick Summary
Strawberry Spinach Salad with Strawberry Balsamic Dressing – spinach salad with fresh strawberries, avocado, candied pecans, red onion, feta cheese, and a simple strawberry dressing. The perfect salad for spring and summer!
Strawberry season is my favorite season. I love red, juicy, sweet strawberries. They are one of my very favorite fruits. During strawberry season, I make as many strawberry recipes as I can: strawberry shortcake, strawberry scones, strawberry smoothies , and this Strawberry Spinach Salad.
This is one of those salads that you will fall in love with after one bite, maybe even one look because it is so pretty. It is just a GOOD salad. It is the perfect salad for spring and summer and goes great with any meal and can be served at any occasion.
It is a great one for baby showers, bridal showers, BBQ’s, potlucks, pool parties, or any holiday. You can also make it for lunch or a simple dinner. Feel free to add grilled chicken if you want to make a meal out of it. You can’t go wrong with this strawberry spinach salad. Everyone loves it!
Table of Contents
Strawberry Balsamic Dressing
Let’s start with the dressing. The fresh strawberry balsamic dressing is SO SO good. It may sound fancy, but it only takes a few minutes to blend up! That’s right, everything goes in the blender and voila, you have a gourmet salad dressing that is SO much better than any store bought dressing.
- To make the dressing, add the strawberries, olive oil, vinegar, honey, salt and pepper to a blender. Blend until smooth. Set aside.
- If you need the salad dressing to be vegan, you can use pure maple syrup instead of honey.
- The dressing will keep in the fridge for up to 5 days. Whisk well before using.
Salad Ingredients
For the salad, you will need:
- Spinach– I love using fresh spinach for this salad, but any greens will work.
- Strawberries– the star of the salad!
- Avocado– avocado makes every salad better!
- Red onion– I love the pop of color!
- Feta cheese– goat cheese is another good option. And if you need the salad to be vegan, you can leave off the cheese.
- Candied Pecans– I love making candied pecans for this salad. The sweet crunch is so nice! I always make them in advance and keep then in a jar in my pantry. You can use regular pecans or even almonds, pistachios, or candied walnuts.
How to Make Strawberry Spinach Salad
Once the dressing is made, it is GO TIME!
- To assemble the salad, place the spinach, strawberries, avocado, red onion, cheese, and candied pecans in a large bowl.
- When ready to serve, drizzle with dressing and toss. It’s that simple!
- Alternatively, you can plate the salads and serve the dressing on the side.
More Salad Recipes
- Berry Kale Salad
- Easy Orzo Salad
- Cobb Salad
- Simple Kale Salad
- Citrus Salad
- Pear Salad
- Shaved Brussels Sprouts Salad
Strawberry Spinach Salad with Strawberry Dressing
Ingredients
For the strawberry dressing:
- 1 cup chopped strawberries
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
For the strawberry spinach salad:
- 8 ounces fresh spinach
- 2 cups sliced strawberries
- 1 large avocado, sliced
- 1/4 red onion, thinly sliced
- 2/3 cup crumbled feta cheese or goat cheese
- 2/3 cup roughly chopped candied pecans or pecans
Instructions
- To make the dressing, add the strawberries, olive oil, vinegar, honey, mustard, salt and pepper to a blender. Blend until smooth. Set aside.
- To assemble the salad, place the spinach, strawberries, avocado, red onion, cheese, and pecans in a large bowl. When ready to serve, drizzle with dressing and toss. Alternatively, you can plate the salads and serve the dressing on the side.
Notes
Nutrition
Have you tried this recipe?
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Lovely salad Maria! I love your idea for the dressing – I’ll have to try that one this summer.
What a great deal on strawberries and such a lovely way to use them 🙂
I love strawberries with spinach. Great spring combo
what a perfect plate of salad…love strawberries..
sweetlife
I wish you well on the bake sale and the tv appearance!! 🙂 I love fruit in salads (well, and fruit salads too…), balsamic vinegar would be a great addition to the dressing as well!
Random comment here, but it occurred to me this a.m. as I was tweeting this link to this recipe, I tweet your recipes a lot… I follow a ton of blogs, but it’s like day after day your recipes are the ones that I think… “yeah, I’d make that.” So hats off to you and your blog. Love it!
Those look incredible. I am bookmarking these for the next big party at our house. YUM!
We’ve had that same kind of busy week around here too. Wish I could have helped with the bake sale. I hope it all goes well! Good luck with your TV spot and may you sale every last crumb at the bake sale! Here’s to hoping next week will be a little calmer!
Your salad is beautiful, I love strawberries with feta….the sweet savory thing is my favorite. xo
Very pretty salad, Maria! I like the light dressing. Good luck on your Studio 5 appearance. I’m sure you’ll be great!
2009 was the year of strawberries. They were juicy and sweet. Great for making the recipe. Hopefully this year it will be as wonderful as 2009. I can’t wait to try this recipe.
mmm i love the strawberry dressing for this! this is similar to a strawberry spinach salad i just made…but it had a poppyseed dressing! (http://www.thesweetslife.com/2010/04/strawberry-spinach-salad-with-poppyseed.html)
I love strawberries and spinach together! GOOD LUCK with your cooking segment! Can’t wait to hear how it goes!
this is fabulous, love the strawberry dressing, what a fun twist!
Your salad has wonderful color, Maria. I love that you’ve used a lighter dressing for it. I love sweet and savory. I hope you are having a wonderful day. Blessings…Mary
those strawberries look sooooo yummy! i love all of your delish recipes!!! thanks for sharing! good luck at the BAKE SALE! whoop whoop! xoxo
Good luck with the TV work AND the bake sale, Maria! Your strawberry salad looks gorgeous, I love combining sweet and savory during the warm months.
My son is a big fan for strawberries. We had tried dessert and yogurt but straberry salad is a new discovery for me. A must-try recipe! Your salad looks amazing! I just can’t keep my eyes off them. Hope both your bake sale and TV show are great success!
Fresh & exciting Maria … love the flavours and colour play!! NICE!!
Good luck for the bake sale…
99 cents for a pound?! That’s awesome!! I can’t wait for strawberry season to come to Boston. This salad looks spectacular – simple yet I’m sure flavorful. Good luck today and tomorrow. This is the exciting kind of busy. 🙂
feta+strawberries? seems like such a strange combo but i am intrigued.
I was surprised to find out about feta and watermelon, too! But it’s great!
This looks wonderful, and I have all of the ingredients on hand. I know what’s for lunch tomorrow! Have fun at the bake sale tomorrow!
Thanks everyone for your kind words and support with the bake sale. I am excited for tomorrow! I Hope we raise lots of money for Share Our Strength!
I wonder if ricotta would work instead of the feta? Lovely salad for the summer
Looks so fresh and delicious. Oh I want fresh local berries, I can not wait!
I often switch strawberries for tomatoes in salads. It works out great.
The pictures are stunning
We ate at Applebee’s on Dixie Highway tonight because my husband is Retired Navy and first of all we appreciate what you all do for the Veterans. We do eat there on occasion anyways.
My problem is I had the Spinach & berry w/grilled chicken salad and I can’t seem to locate the Nutrition Data on the dressing. Is is included in the calories of the Salad or can you give me the information ?
Also, not on my Diet of course I get to blow it once in awhile but I had a Strawberry Daiquiri which was delicious. I need the Nutrition Data on it to. I keep a journal every day and if it goes in my mouth I write it down. I’ve been on this Diet since Feb. 12th, 2012 and have lost about 73 pounds by counting calories. Thats why this is so important to me. By the way I am 62 years old so it took me till this past Feb. to make up my mind to be healthy and get that weight off and keep it off.
Thank You,
Joanie Grant 502 298 3299
This is very nice blog because information provided here through the article and the pictures are very effective. Because sometimes words cannot explain the things that pictures can and here the words and pictures both are expressing the things in balance.
The strawberry dressing ingredients list 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard.
However, dressing instructions do not include dijon mustard.
Is the mustard part of the dressing?
Thank you.
Yes, fixed it! Thanks for catching that!
Oh Yum!! This salad has all the flavour you could ask for. The only change I made was to simply toast the pecans as I’m trying to keep my sugars low. The dressing was SO tasty.
So happy you loved the salad.
This salad is fabulous! I am so thrilled to have the strawberry dressing as a new favorite. Thank you, Maria!
The dressing is the BEST!
Your recipes are the best! I love your blog. The magnificent pictures, directions and tips. Thank you!
Thanks so much!
These aren’t reviews, they are comments. I need to read actual reviews as to how it tasted!
This spinach and strawberry salad salad is delicious. I made it for our family get together and
we all wanted seconds! now I am having it for dinner almost every night.
Thank you Maria!
Yay!