Peach Berry Summer Salad
This peach berry summer salad offers fresh and vibrant flavors in a hearty, delicious salad that will delight your tastebuds. The lemon and basil vinaigrette is the perfect compliment to juicy peaches, succulent blueberries, crisp cucumbers, crunchy pecans, and salty feta cheese.
While easy to toss together, the light and zesty homemade vinaigrette makes it feel gourmet. As it perfectly enhance the natural sweetness of the fruits, and gives you that little something that takes this salad over the top making it a summer staple.
Serve with Grilled Chicken and Rice Pilaf for a great summery meal.
This peach berry salad is one of my favorites for a multitude of reasons, and makes a great addition to any summer meal. Here are some of the main reasons we love it!
- Refreshing and Light: Those scorching summer days make eating heavy foods a challenge. This peach and berry salad offer a refreshing and light meal option that is perfect for the heat. Seasonal fruit, light and crisp veggies, and a variety of lettuces make won’t weigh you down, and the homemade dressing is light, tangy, and refreshing. You get all the essential nutrients to keep you feeling energized and ready to go during the hot weather.
- Easy to Make: Summer salads are so colorful, vibrant, and delicious, but also so easy to throw together. They are no cook, and loaded with deliciousness. And you can totally customize these summer salads to your taste and dietary preferences.
- Delicious: Two types of crisp and buttery lettuce, sweet juicy peaches, tart plump berries, sweet pecans, and salty feta, this is a winning combo for a quick, easy, satisfying meal with so much flavor.
What You Need to Make Peach Berry Salad
This recipe for summer salad is eazy peazy and ingredients are easy to find, especially during the summer months, and it is a delightfully colorful, vibrant, and flavorful salad that will be perfect for BBQ’s, potlucks, and more.
- Green Leaf Lettuce
- Boston lettuce
- Blueberries
- Peaches
- English Cucumber
- Feta Crumbles
- Pecans
Dressing
- Lemon Juice
- Dijon Mustard
- Honey
- Olive Oil
- Basil
- Salt and Pepper
Recommended Equipment
How to Make Peach Berry Salad
These salad is so simple to make and has a huge impact, and the homemade dressing is really the key here. It takes it to another level, and is worth the small effort.
Step One: Make homemade dressing.
Juice fresh lemons, and just put everything together in a mason jar, put the lid on and shake it all up. Or, use a whisk to whisk it all together. Then set aside to dress the salad just before serving.
Tip: you can make this dressing ahead, just wait to add the fresh basil until just before using so you can store it for longer in the fridge.
Step Two: Prep the Lettuce
Wash and tear your lettuce leaves. I like using the two different varieties to get extra flavor in my salad. But when in a pinch feel free to just use green leaf or boston or butter lettuce.
Tip: Use a salad spinner to wash your lettuce leaves and remove the excess moisture.
Step Three: Rough Chop Pecans
You can toast your pecans, but I prefer raw in this salad, as it adds to the freshness and the salad is already sweet. The earthy nutiness helps ground the salad and enhance the other flavors.
Step Four: Slice Peaches, Cut Cucumbers
For this particular salad I used a white flesh peach that was cling free, but any peach varietal will work well with this flavor profile.
Tip: use a cling free peach to make removing the pit and slicing the peach easier.
Step Five: Assemble
Once all the individual ingredients are prepped you simply assemble the salad. I love layering the various parts so that the salad is both visually appealing and delicious.
Tips and Tricks
Making this recipe is Eazy Peazy, but here are some tips for making it turn out every time…
- Wash and Dry Lettuce Thoroughly: A summer salad needs crisp, delicious lettuce, and you do not want to dilute your flavor by having watery lettuce. So wash and dry lettuce thoroughly before hand tearing it into bite sized pieces for your salad.
- Use Two Types of Lettuce for More Texture: For this salad I use a softer Boston lettuce, which has a butter flavor, and a crisper green leaf which has a mildly sweet and bitter flavor. It adds texture and flavor to your summer salad to use both varieties.
- Customize as Desired: This salad is amazing as is, but it can always be nice to toss in things like nectarine slices, mango chunks, raspberries or cut strawberries if you have them on hand. Summer salads are wonderful with fresh fruit, and you can customize this one to fit your preference or use up some of the things you have on hand. You can also add a protein of your choice like grilled chicken if you wish to make it a complete meal.
- Best Ingredients: To get the best result, use the best ingredients. Make sure your peaches are ripe, your blueberries too, that your pecans are not rancid, your cucumber and lettuce are crisp, and if you can, freshly crumble your feta for the best flavor. The better the starting and raw ingredients, the better the final result will be.
- Homemade is Key: The homemade dressing is the real show stopper here, so don’t settle for a store-bought lemon vinaigrette, instead take the extra few minutes to whip up this dressing, it is worth it.
- Assemble Just Before Serving: Fresh is best, if you let your salad sit too long, it will get soggy and not be as good. Also, be sure to dress it just before serving, not beforehand. The lettuces and fruits are too delicate and you don’t want them to break down and get soggy.
Make Ahead and Storage
Because this is a fresh salad, it is best assembled fresh. However, you can prepare the dressing ahead of time to serve later. If you do this, add the fresh basil just before serving, as it can brown or go bad if made too early. Otherwise, the dressing can be kept in the fridge for a week without a problem.
Other Great Recipes with Peaches:
- Peach Lemonade
- Peach Burrata Salad
- Easy Peach BBQ Sauce
- One-Skillet Pork Tenderloin and Peaches Recipe
- Peach Pie
WANT MORE EZPZ? Subscribe to my newsletter and follow along on Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram for all of the latest updates.
Peach Berry Summer Salad
Ingredients
- 1/2 pint fresh blueberries
- 1-2 fresh peaches white flesh or any variety
- 1/2 english cucumber
- 1/2 cup feta crumbles
- 1/4 cup raw pecans chopped
- 1 head green leaf lettuce washed and torn
- 1 head Boston leaf lettuce washed and torn
Dressing
- 3 Tbs fresh lemon juice
- 1 Tbs Dijon mustard
- 1 Tbs honey
- 1 Tbs olive oil
- 1 Tbs fresh basil chiffoned
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- In a mason jar with a lid, add all of the dressing ingredients and shake to combine well. Or use a wire whisk to whisk ingredients together. Set aside.
- Wash and tear lettuce, removing any woody stems. Tear into equal size, bite sized pieces.
- Slice peaches and remove the pit
- Slice cucumber into rounds or half moons
- Rough chop pecans
- Crumble feta
- Assemble salad by topping the two lettuces with the other prepared ingredients.
- Dress salad just before serving.
Notes
- Wash and Dry Lettuce Thoroughly: A summer salad needs crisp, delicious lettuce, and you do not want to dilute your flavor by having watery lettuce. So wash and dry lettuce thoroughly before hand tearing it into bite sized pieces for your salad.
- Use Two Types of Lettuce for More Texture: For this salad I use a softer Boston lettuce, which has a butter flavor, and a crisper green leaf which has a mildly sweet and bitter flavor. It adds texture and flavor to your summer salad to use both varieties.
- Customize as Desired: This salad is amazing as is, but it can always be nice to toss in things like nectarine slices, mango chunks, raspberries or cut strawberries if you have them on hand. Summer salads are wonderful with fresh fruit, and you can customize this one to fit your preference or use up some of the things you have on hand. You can also add a protein of your choice like grilled chicken if you wish to make it a complete meal.
- Best Ingredients: To get the best result, use the best ingredients. Make sure your peaches are ripe, your blueberries too, that your pecans are not rancid, your cucumber and lettuce are crisp, and if you can, freshly crumble your feta for the best flavor. The better the starting and raw ingredients, the better the final result will be.
- Homemade is Key: The homemade dressing is the real show stopper here, so don’t settle for a store-bought lemon vinaigrette, instead take the extra few minutes to whip up this dressing, it is worth it.
- Assemble Just Before Serving: Fresh is best, if you let your salad sit too long, it will get soggy and not be as good. Also, be sure to dress it just before serving, not beforehand. The lettuces and fruits are too delicate and you don’t want them to break down and get soggy.
Our recipe card software calculates these nutrition facts based on averages for the above ingredients, different brands, and quality of produce/meats may have different nutritional information, always calculate your own based on the specific products you use in order to achieve accurate macros for this recipe.
Want to use this recipe in a meal plan?Try PrePear, my FREE Meal Planning App that allows you to save your recipes, plan meals, shop for groceries, and cook simply in one place. Join Here!Pin to your Salad board on Pinterest:
Leave a Reply