This Strawberry Salad is easy to throw together but packed with tons of amazing flavor! It’s easy enough for a weeknight dinner but delicious enough to serve company!
One of my post popular summer recipes is my Strawberry Salad Dressing. And this salad is the perfect companion for that amazing salad dressing. The saltiness of the bacon and the crisp spinach are the perfect pairing with that sweet and delicious poppyseed dressing.
How to Make Strawberry Salad
- Cook the bacon. I love dicing my bacon before cooking it and then removing it from the frying pan with a slotted spoon. Though you could absolutely cook it whole if that is easier for you.
- Toss the salad ingredients. In a large bowl combine the spinach, oranges, strawberry slices, bacon, and red onions.
- Serve with the salad dressing. My preference is to allow others to dress their own salad, but you can add just a small amount before serving as well.
Leftovers
If you skip dressing this salad, the salad itself will keep in the refrigerator for two to three days. As with any recipe, use your best discretion when it comes to leftovers.
Strawberry Spinach Salad Dressing
The salad dressing for this recipe comes together really simply in the food processor. You can see all the details of making that recipe and my recommendations in my Strawberry Salad Dressing post.
If this dressing doesn’t appeal to you, you might enjoy the dressing used in my Strawberry Spinach Salad. Or a simple Balsamic Dressing would be great here too.
Substitutions and Variations
If you aren’t a big fan of one or more of these ingredients here are a few suggestions for swapping.
- Use pineapple instead of the mandarin oranges.
- Replace the red onions with thinly sliced green onions.
- To make this recipe vegetarian, replace the bacon with walnuts. You could even use candied walnuts or candied pecans in this recipe.
- Try adding some goat cheese here, it would be delicious.
What to Serve Strawberry Salad With
This recipe would be amazing as the side to so many recipes. Here are some summer classics I think you will love it with.
Strawberry Salad
Ingredients
- 1/2 pound of bacon diced, cooked, and drained
- 5 ounces spinach
- 4 oz or 1/4 cup mandarin oranges (see note)
- 1/4 small red onion sliced thin
- 1 cup strawberries sliced
- Strawberry Poppyseed Dressing to taste
Strawberry Salad Dressing
- 2 cups fresh strawberries cut in half
- 1/3 cup orange juice
- 1/4 red onion
- 1 1/2 tablespoons honey
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/3 cup olive oil
- 1 tablespoon poppy seeds
Instructions
To Make Dressing
- Combine the strwaberries, orange juice, red onion, honey, and salt in a blender or food processor. Blend until smooth. Taste and add more salt or honey to taste.
- Slowly blend in the olive oil. Then transfer the dressing to a storange container and add the poppyseeds. Shake to combine.
- Cut the bacon and then cook it until crisp in a heavy bottomed skillet. Remove it with a slotted spoon and transfer it to a paper towel lined plate.
To Make the Salad
- Toss bacon with the oranges, strawberries, onions, and bacon.
- Serve with the salad dressing.
Notes
pat says
the only change I made was using left over chicken instead of bacon.
Mary Lou Jones says
Can you supply the nutritional info for this salad??.thank you!
It is in there now.
Linda says
Your Strawberry Salad is delicious. Such a refreshing change to serve to my family!
I’m so happy that your family enjoys it!
PEGGY ANNETTE PHILYAW says
going to try it one day.
I hoe you enjoy it!
mary says
Lisa i love simple joy i feel like a chef and you made it happen thank you so much
I’m glad to hear it!