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A mouthwatering salad with fresh strawberries, cranberries, goat cheese and almonds. The strawberry balsamic dressing gives it the perfect flavor and is one amazing summer salad!
It really is no secret at all that I love a good salad. It has helped me to keep a healthy diet and maintain my goals that I made at the beginning go the year. Of course I have to keep going to the gym and doing crossfit so I can still enjoy a brownie every once in a while, but healthy eating has been key to my weight loss journey.
Speaking of the gym. Let me tell you how my Saturday went down. I knew that Memorial Day was on Monday. And in crossfit, they do what is called the MURPH workout. It is a seriously hard workout. It consists of a 2 mile run, 100 pull ups, 200 push ups, and 300 air squats. And it is amazing if you finish in under an hour. So I went to the gym Saturday thinking that I would miss the workout on Monday. But to my surprise they switched it to Saturday. I was in for a real treat. 🙂
The thing that I love about Crossfit is the support that every person gives. They become your family and cheer you on and help you through each workout. My partner on Saturday helped to push me through each workout and we finished in 57 minutes. It was such an amazing feeling and accomplishment. I can’t believe that I actually did it! It is incredible what we can push ourselves to do if we put our mind to it.
We have a little tradition on Saturdays to stop by the Einstein Bagel on the corner after the gym and get some bagels. I gotta have my carbs after a tough workout. But while I was there I saw a Strawberry Chicken Salad that looked amazing and I wanted to make it immediately! So I got all of the ingredients and came home and made it for myself. It was awesome.
Everything about this salad was amazing from the chicken, to the fresh berries, to everything in between. And I decided to top it off with a sweet strawberry balsamic dressing. It was the perfect finishing touch to this salad.
This salad is incredible and perfect for the summer with all of the fresh berries inside. I have already made it to days in a row and I know that this will become a favorite for you as well!
Strawberry Balsamic Dressing from Paleo Leap
Strawberry Chicken Salad with Strawberry Balsamic Dressing
Ingredients
- 2 cups cooked chicken chopped
- 4 cups romaine chopped
- 2 cups strawberries chopped
- 1/2 cup dried cranberries
- 1/4 cup red onion sliced
- 1/4 cup goat cheese crumbled
- 1/4 cup almonds sliced
Strawberry Balsamic Dressing:
- 1 cup strawberries
- 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
- 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
- 1 clove garlic minced
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
Instructions
To make the strawberry balsamic dressing:
- In a food processor or blender, pulse the strawberries, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, dijon mustard, garlic, salt and pepper until smooth. Set aside.
- In a large bowl toss the chicken, romaine, strawberries, dried cranberries, red onion, goat cheese, and sliced almonds. Toss with dressing or drizzle on top of served portions.
Nutrition
Serves: 6
All nutritional information is based on third party calculations and is only an estimate. Each recipe and nutritional value will vary depending on the brands you use, measuring methods and portion sizes per household.
Absolutely delicious. I omitted the salt from the dressing to make it even lower in sodium. Made a wonderful dinner for me and fit my low sugar diet with a little fruit and reduced sugar cranberries. And I have plenty of dressing left for salads for the next couple of days.
What a delicious summer dinner! I followed the recipe exactly except I did add some baby spinach. I bought chicken breasts and grilled them on the bbq. But by far and away, my favorite part was the dressing! Absolutely delicious!
Made it yesterday for my beading group. Everyone loved it. Excellent summer salad for lunch or dinner.
Wonderful recipe and it was an absolute hit with my entire family. Thank you so very much for sharing.
We wanted a salad but had tired of chicken Caesar varieties. Other chicken salads with some cheese, some nuts, some fruit and raspberry dressing are common; strawberry dressing based recipes are less common, especially those with a dressing sub-recipe. Thus we were hugely interested after reading it except for the idea of almonds. We love strawberries, dried cranberries, goat cheese. We grilled chicken tenders with 400F indirect heat (to prevent dryness) on a Big Green Egg to 165F. We added the other ingredients exactly except substituted pecan pieces for the almonds. My son and I added cracked pepper at the table, my wife did not. We all LOVED this salad! The taste is fresh and fruity; the dressing adds but does not overpower. We got about 22 ounces total and so calculated about 80 calories per ounce. My wife and I had six ounce servings while our bicycle riding 40 year old son had twice that.
This is a delicious salad and very filling. I used white balsamic vinegar as I figured it would go with the strawberries. I didn’t have pecans so I used walnuts. This is definitely a company meal.
Yum! Amazing salad! Can’t wait to try this recipe. I will be sharing a link to your recipe in my upcoming post, Easy Healthy Lunch Ideas (on a Budget). I am sure my readers will love your recipe too!
Is it 1 tbs or tsp of Dijon mustard? Mine doesn’t look like the pretty red dressing you have in the picture?
The salad looks fabulous. Have looked high and low but can’t find the nutritional info. How do I find it? Thanks
Katie
do you know the nutrition value for this? i made it tonight it was amazing and tried calculating it myself but was curious if you had a more accurate calorie/fat/carb/etc count
I made this for a teacher appreciation lunch yesterday! Everyone loved it but thought the dressing was too sour. When I tasted it, I did think the dressing alone had a lot of balsamic vinegar taste to it. My husband said it should balance out when on the salad but I don’t think it did. Should I just reduce the amount of vinegar next time?
I see red onions but did not see them listed in recipe?
Thanks for catching that! I used about 1/4 cup sliced red onion.
This was WONDERFUL! I made this for dinner tonight for my mother and me. We’ve recently gotten on a salad kick and it’s hot down here in Georgia currently. I wanted something cool for dinner and this was perfect! I will definitely be making this again! I’ve never made my own salad dressing before and the dressing was so delicious and easy to make. I’m not a huge fan of vinaigrettes, but I liked the tangy sweetness that was created when the strawberries were added.
The picture shows red onion but i dont see it listed as an ingredient. Are there any other things that should be in the salad that i might be missing?
Had this salad for dinner tonight. I used toasted pecans instead of almonds. Fantastic!
Looks fresh and wonderfully tasty!
Enjoying your site. What a beautiful family! Great pictures of all your recipes, too. I’m a Finnish Pancake fan, having learned to make them about 25 yrs. ago in BC, Canada. Too bad hubby & I are eating low carb now, but I can still try out some of the recipes for my 2 young adults.
It looks so delicious and it is so healthy. I love it. I cant wait to try making it. Besides, your blog is what I am looking for and so amazing and incredible 🙂
Looks great! What kind of pre-cooked chicken did you use?
If I use pre cooked I just grab the Tyson. Or our local market just has some on hand in the deli. 🙂
This salad looks amazing, so fresh and scrumptious!
That salad is downright delicious. It’s so fresh looking that it’s all I can do to keep hitting the screen with a fork.