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Strawberry spinach salad is a perfect combination of fresh spinach, juicy strawberries, crunchy onions, and soft feta cheese; all tossed together with a creamy poppyseed dressing! All the flavor, texture, and deliciousness in one bowl!
You can’t go wrong with a delicious, filling salad recipes prepared at home! This egg salad, this delicious creamy grape salad, or this yummy beef taco salad need to be added to your lunchtime routine.
A Reader’s Review
Amazing and my kids love it!
Strawberry Spinach Salad Recipe
I love spinach! I like to switch up my lettuce in my salads and my go-to is spinach. And since spinach goes with everything, I wanted to make a classic strawberry salad with it… poppyseed dressing and all! You can’t go wrong with this salad combination. It is bursting with flavor and loads of texture and delicious ingredients. It’s requested a LOT in our family, which says something if my kids not only will eat it but they love it!
This is a go-to salad for me and so simple to make! This salad is so easy to make, and you can easily switch things up (like add in some chopped up, cooked chicken for some protein!) to make this salad work for you! This is great for lunch, or a get-together, or you can even add it as a side dish to any entree. The colors are vibrant, the taste is delightful and fresh and the time spent making it is worth it.
Strawberry Spinach Salad Ingredients
Using fresh ingredients and delicious toppings, when you mix this salad with homemade poppyseed dressing, you will go crazy! It’s so good. See the recipe card at the bottom of the post for exact measurements.
- Spinach: You can use baby spinach or regular spinach. They will both work great!
- Strawberries: The strawberries bring the best taste and texture to this salad. You can also use any other berries that you have on hand instead. Fresh Blueberries or blackberries are my next favorite choices!
- Almonds: I used sliced almonds in this but slivered almonds work just as well. I’ve also made this with other nuts like candied pecans or walnuts.
- Red Onion: When I slice this up, I like to make sure that my slices arent too thick. It adds such a great flavor but I don’t want a mouthfull of just onion when I mix it up!
- Feta Cheese: Crumbled feta cheese is my favorite part of this recipe!
- Craisins: These add vibrant color, texture and a delicious taste.
Homemade Creamy Poppyseed Dressing
- Mayonnaise: The base of the poppyseed dressing is mayo. You could substitute this with greek yogurt if you want a slightly healthier version.
- Milk: This mixes with the may so that the dressing is not too thick and can be drizzled on top of your greens.
- Sugar: This sweetens up the taste of the tangy mayo.
- Apple Cider Vinegar: This breaks down the dressing making it the perfect consistency while adding a bit of flavor.
- Poppyseeds: These look good and a must in this dressing!
How Do You Make Strawberry Spinach Salad?
- Combine and Toss: In a large bowl combine spinach, strawberries, sliced almonds, red onion, feta cheese, and craisins and toss.
- Mix up the Dressing: In a small bowl whisk together mayonnaise, milk, sugar, cider vinegar, and poppyseeds. Pour over the salad and use as desired.
Variations
There are easy ways to change up this strawberry spinach salad and make it different every time! Here are a few ideas that you can try out!
- Milk: If you have any allerigies or just prefer another kind of milk then you can substitute it in the dressing using soy milk, almond milk, rice milk, coconut milk, hemp milk, or even cashew milk!
- Dressing: If you don’t want to use poppyseed dressing then try out some balsamic vinegar dressing instead for a strawberry balsamic salad.
- Mix-ins: I like to change out the ingredients every once in a while to add some variety. Try using raspberries, walnuts, blueberries, pears, goat cheese, blue cheese, quinoa, mandarin oranges or even apples!
Can You Meal Prep this Salad?
Absolutely! This strawberry spinach salad is great to meal prep with. Just leave the dressing off and add it on right before you are ready to eat so that the spinach doesn’t get soggy.
Can You Make the Poppyseed Dressing Ahead of Time?
Yes! This is great to make ahead and will last 3 to 5 days in the refrigerator. Add it to your strawberry spinach salad when you are ready to eat!
More Strawberry Recipes to Try
If you a strawberry lover then boy do I have some recipe for you! Strawberries are the absolute best because they can be added to sides, salads, and desserts. The opportunities are endless! Here are a few of my favorite strawberry recipes that you MUST try!
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Strawberry Spinach Salad
Ingredients
- 1 (6 ounce) package spinach
- 1 (16 ounce) package strawberries
- 1/2 cup sliced almonds
- 1/2 red onion (sliced)
- 1 cup feta cheese
- 1 cup craisins
Creamy Poppyseed Dressing
- 1/3 cup mayonnaise
- 1/4 cup milk
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 4 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
- 2 teaspoons poppyseeds
Instructions
- In a large bowl combine spinach, strawberries, sliced almonds, red onion, feta cheese, and craisins and toss.
- To make the creamy poppyseed dressing: In a small bowl whisk together mayonnaise, milk, sugar, cider vinegar, and poppyseeds. Pour over the salad and use as desired.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I would love to try this salad, love spinach and love strawberries never thought of combining them, do you slice the strawberries I can’t wait to try this
This was a wonderful salad and I also made your Strawberry Balsamic Dressing and that really good too. Thanks again. 🙂
Easy and delicious!
This is such a tasty salad! The dressing is light and delicious. I used Swerve in place of the sugar. I also toasted the sliced almonds. So good!
Great idea to toast the almond slices. I made this salad with walnuts and almonds. honestly the sliced almonds are better. I’m making this again next week and I’m going to toast, almonds slices, thank you
Way too much sugar…natural sugar in berries and cranberries so no need to add sugar to dressing. Otherwise looks delicious and will give it a go…cutting the cranberries down too for a sugar reduced healthy salad.
Try it before you criticize, I think it was perfect just the way she made it.
Delicious and easy. Showcases the season’s bounty very well!
This salad and dressing are amazing. In the dressing I did use the greek yogurt and also maple syrup pin place of the sugar and it was delicious. I served this with Chicken Shawarma and oh man it was fantastic.
Excellent salad! Loved it.
Amazing and my kids love it
I was looking for a salad recipe to change things up and this one delivered. I remember this salad being big in the late ’80s or early ’90s. However it still delivers now. Love the sweet of the strawberry with the bite of the red onion. I find poppy seed dressing too sweet most of the time so I cut back to 2 T of sugar and it was just right.
I took it to my church picnic today and it was fully eaten by attendees, which doesn’t happen very often. Note that the dressing is very thin. It wasn’t a problem, but that wasn’t what I expected.