Strawberry Pecan Spinach Salad
This spinach salad offers fresh berries, and candied pecans and a delicious homemade balsamic vinaigrette that take this from an ordinary spinach salad to something extraordinary, with little to no work for you!
Serve with soft crescent rolls, or along side grilled chicken breasts for a delicious meal.
Strawberry Pecan Spinach Salad: With the sun making its first shy appearances, I have been wanting a summer salad lately.
I love fresh greens and a great dressing. And this salad is ideal for any time of year, whether it is January, and you want something healthy to help you stick to your resolutions, or mid summer when it is too hot to cook, you can’t go wrong with this spinach salad.
It starts with some basic ingredients like strawberries, feta cheese, and of course spinach. And then you add in the candied pecans and a homemade balsamic dressing that is so simple (3 ingredients) but oh so good.
Spinach Salad Must Knows:
- Wait to dress it: Go ahead and mix up your balsamic dressing, but don’t pour it on until you are just about ready to serve it. That way it won’t get soggy.
- Use as much or as little dressing as you desire. The recipe makes a lot of dressing, so you could cut it down if you want. Since everyone prefers their salad a little different, adjust accordingly, it is just equal parts oil, balsamic vinegar, and sugar. Most of the calories from this salad come from the dressing, so if you are watching calories, adjust accordingly on that as well.
- Dressing Tip: You can swap raw honey for the sugar to make it a little better for you.
- Sweeter strawberries make a sweeter salad. Don’t count on the dressing to sweeten things up, use ripe strawberries. And if they are really nice and sweet you could even cut back on the sugar in the dressing.
- The Feta Cheese should be crumbled: And it adds such a nice counter balance to the flavors. You are going to love it!
- The pecans add crunch, if you want to lower the sugar intake, use raw pecans instead of candied!
Strawberry, Pecan, Spinach Salads are pretty awesome because they can be a side of a main.
And there are times when I use this one as much whole meal, and times when it serves as a side along a good marinated chicken breast or something.
One of my tricks to make my family feel like it is a really great main dish is using a beautiful serving bowl.
I have been eyeing this Acacia Wood Salad bowl on Amazon for a while now. What do you guys think?
This Strawberry, Pecan Spinach Salad is one of our favorites. It is extremely flavorful, as well as satisfying. It is also super easy to customize. You can change it up by adding:
- Rotisserie chicken
- Avocado
- A little wheat germ or flax seed
- Other nuts as you see fit.
Or eat it just as it is. The hubby calls it “The World’s Best” but I will leave it to you to decide what you think! Let us know what fun additions you might add to this delightful salad.
I love this particular type of candied pecan or the Trader Joe’s ones.
They are my favorite, and I just order them on Amazon, but when I run out I quickly candy them myself with a little butter, sugar, and salt. 
BEWARE: The dressing is addicting, you might find yourself adding it to any number of other foods. I keep a small jelly jar full and ready at all times.
But if you don’t want to do that, you can just decide how much you want and make it like this: equal parts sugar, oil, vinegar! It is a good formula for any vinegar based dressings, and a fun way to add new flavors and mix things up a bit!
Other awesome salads:
Strawberry, pecan, spinach salad
Ingredients
- 1 bag baby spinach
- 1/2 pound fresh strawberries sliced
- 1/2 cup candied pecans
- 1/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese or feta cheese
- Dressing:
- 1/3 cup sugar of sweetener of choice
- 1/3 cup EVOO
- 1/3 cup Balsamic vinegar
Instructions
- Assemble salad ingredients in a large bowl
- In a separate dish, mix together all dressing ingredients, and shake or stir well
- Dress salad just before serving
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.
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