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This strawberry chicken salad is filled with fresh fruit, goat cheese, almonds, and chicken and makes my mouth water just thinking about it! The strawberry balsamic dressing gives it the perfect flavor and takes this salad over the top!

If you love a good salad, then I have a few others that you MUST try! Check out this Broccoli Apple Salad, this delicious Asparagus Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette, or even this delicious Strawberry Cheesecake Dessert Salad. There is a recipe for any occasion!

The top view of a bowl of strawberry chicken salad with strawberry balsamic dressing.

Strawberry Chicken Salad Recipe

It really is no secret at all that I love a good salad. It has helped me to keep a healthy diet and maintain the goals that I made at the beginning of the year. This salad checks all of the boxes. It’s healthy, delicious, and filled with fruits, veggies, and protein! I decided to top it off with a sweet strawberry balsamic dressing. It was the perfect finishing touch to this salad.

Not only does this salad knock it out of the park with its deliciousness, but it also is so easy to make!! I like to prepare my chicken ahead of time (try making it in your instant pot with this recipe) and then I can keep that in my fridge for a few recipes throughout the week!

Ingredients in Strawberry Chicken Salad

These ingredients are simple and easy! The best part about a salad is that you can change up the ingredients every time and make it different. My kids don’t like everything that I put into it so this is a great way to help them pick and choose what they like. Check out the recipe card at the bottom of the post for exact measurements.

Salad

  • Cooked Chicken: I like to use grilled chicken or buy a rotisserie chicken from Costco to make this part super easy!
  • Romaine: I like using this as the base of the salad but spinach nor arugula work great too.
  • Strawberries: Always use fresh strawberries in a salad!
  • Dried Cranberries: These add in such a delightful taste and texture.
  • Red Onion: I like to use red onion because it’s the onion that tastes the best when it’s raw.
  • Goat Cheese: If you don’t like goat cheese then you can use feta cheese for this strawberry chicken salad instead.
  • Almonds: I used sliced or slivered almonds for this salad.

Strawberry Balsamic Dressing

  • Strawberries: You can use fresh or frozen strawberries for this recipe.
  • Balsamic Vinegar: This brings in a fantastic savory flavor to the dressing.
  • Extra-Virgin Olive Oil: This is a must!
  • Dijon Mustard: I know, this sounds interesting but trust me, you don’t want to leave it out!
  • Garlic: You can mince up fresh garlic cloves or use the minced garlic from your fridge!
  • Salt and Pepper: These will enhance all of the flavors in the dressing for this strawberry chicken salad.

Let’s Make a Strawberry Chicken Salad!

This strawberry chicken salad is so delicious that you will want to serve it for every meal! It’s a great one to prepare all of your ingredients ahead of time and then toss them together when you are ready to eat!

  1. Blend: In a food processor or blender, pulse the strawberries, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, dijon mustard, garlic, salt and pepper until smooth. Set aside.
  2. Toss and Drizzle: In a large bowl toss the chicken, romaine, strawberries, dried cranberries, red onion, goat cheese, and sliced almonds. Then, toss with dressing or drizzle on top of served portions.
2 pictures showing how to make the dressing and 2 pictures showing all of the ingredients for the salad in glass bowls.

Variations

Change up this strawberry chicken salad and make it perfect just for you! Here are some tips on what you can substitute and how you can change things up.

  • Nuts: You don’t have to use almonds for this recipe! Try using pecans or walnuts instead. They will give off that same great crunch with a slightly different taste.
  • Dressing: You can easily change this up by using a lemon vinaigrette or a delicious poppyseed dressing.
  • Mix-Ins: Try adding some raisins, and some mandarin oranges. Different berries are delicious too! Try adding some raspberries, blackberries or blueberries to the mix!
Strawberry vinaigrette being drizzled over the top of a salad.

Make it Ahead of Time

This strawberry chicken salad tastes best when you add the dressing to it right before you serve it (so the ingredients don’t get soggy). However, I like to chop everything up beforehand and store them in my fridge in separate containers. Then, I can toss everything together and drizzle the dressing on whenever I am ready to eat!

A close up of strawberry chicken salad with a wooden spoon in the bowl.

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Strawberry Chicken Salad with Strawberry Balsamic Dressing

5 from 5 votes
By: Alyssa Rivers
This strawberry chicken salad is filled with fresh fruit, goat cheese, almonds, and chicken and makes my mouth water just thinking about it! The strawberry balsamic dressing gives it the perfect flavor and takes this salad over the top! 
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 15 minutes
Servings: 6 Servings

Ingredients 

Salad

Strawberry Balsamic Dressing

Instructions 

  • 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.

Notes

Originally Posted on May 25, 2015
Updated on September 2, 2022

Nutrition

Calories: 291kcalCarbohydrates: 19gProtein: 16gFat: 18gSaturated Fat: 4gPolyunsaturated Fat: 3gMonounsaturated Fat: 10gTrans Fat: 0.002gCholesterol: 39mgSodium: 201mgPotassium: 374mgFiber: 4gSugar: 13gVitamin A: 2857IUVitamin C: 44mgCalcium: 65mgIron: 2mg

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

Additional Info

Course: Salad
Cuisine: American
Tried this recipe?Mention @alyssa_therecipecritic or tag #therecipecritic!

About Alyssa Rivers

Alyssa Rivers is the author of 'The Tried and True Cookbook', a professional food photographer and experienced recipe-developer. Having a passion for cooking, her tried and true recipes have been featured on Good Morning America, Today Food, Buzzfeed and more.

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Recipe Rating




23 Comments

  1. 5 stars
    Wonderful recipe and it was an absolute hit with my entire family. Thank you so very much for sharing.

  2. 5 stars
    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.

  3. 5 stars
    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.

  4. 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!

  5. Is it 1 tbs or tsp of Dijon mustard? Mine doesn’t look like the pretty red dressing you have in the picture?

  6. The salad looks fabulous. Have looked high and low but can’t find the nutritional info. How do I find it? Thanks
    Katie

    1. 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

  7. 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?

      1. 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.

  8. 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?

  9. 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.

  10. 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 🙂

    1. If I use pre cooked I just grab the Tyson. Or our local market just has some on hand in the deli. 🙂

  11. 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.