This is the best strawberry spinach salad with feta and walnuts! Top it with an easy and delicious homemade poppy seed dressing. It’s definitely the perfect salad for a crowd!
This post is sponsored by Klarbrunn.
Strawberry Spinach Salad
Finally! Summer’s officially here, which means it’s time to enjoy my favorite strawberry spinach feta salad. This salad is my favorite summery salad and I look forward to strawberry season every year because of it.
This salad pairs perfectly with Klarbrunn’s Strawberry Guava Sparkling Water! It’s the perfect light, refreshing, and delicious drink to enjoy with this salad on a hot summer day.
Have you tried their water yet? It’s absolutely my favorite sparkling water, and I really recommend trying it if you haven’t yet! You can buy Klarbrunn’s sparkling water here.
Salad for a Crowd
This is the perfect salad recipe for a crowd! It’s a really popular salad recipe that so many people love.
That’s the key, isn’t it? To make a salad that people genuinely like and want to eat? You’ll be the queen of the party with this recipe. Everyone will keep coming back for more of this salad!
It’s sweet from the poppy seed dressing and strawberries, but not overly so.
Salty and creamy from the feta, but just enough.
Crunchy from the walnuts and fresh from baby spinach.
Finally, there’s just enough tang from the vinegar and red onions.
Depending on how many people you’re expecting, just multiply the recipe to get the number of servings you need.
Optional Add-Ins and Substitutions
There are so many ways you can customize this salad to your personal preferences!
- Substitute the walnuts with pecans or almonds.
- Use goat cheese, gorgonzola, or blue cheese instead of feta.
- Try apple cider vinegar in the dressing for a sweeter flavor. You can also use a balsamic vinaigrette or try a honey mustard dressing.
- Play with the toppings – you could try including bacon, chicken, blueberries, or quinoa.
If you love sweet salads, you may enjoy my Broccoli Cranberry Salad recipe. It’s a very popular recipe with tons of 5-star ratings!
Healthy Poppy Seed Dressing
If you want a healthier salad dressing, try my lightened up version of poppy seed dressing.
In a medium bowl, mix the following:
- ½ Tablespoon honey
- ½ Tablespoon lemon juice
- ¼ cup Greek yogurt
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- 1 teaspoon poppy seeds
- ⅛ teaspoon fine sea salt
Spinach Salad Meal Prep
To make this a meal prep salad, I recommend storing it in a mason jar.
I prefer this as a mason jar salad because assembling the salad in layers keeps the individual ingredients fresher longer. I’d also recommend storing the salad dressing separately and only adding it when you’re ready to eat.
Vegan Spinach Salad
To make this salad vegan, the only substitution you need to make is replacing the feta with a vegan feta. You can also make our own vegan feta with tofu!
Gluten Free Strawberry Spinach Salad
This recipe is gluten free as it’s written and no substitutions are needed.
What You’ll Need
You need hardly anything to make this simple and easy recipe.
Other than a good knife and cutting board, the only tools I’d recommend are an extra-large mixing bowl (mine comes in handy for everything from salads to baking) and a salad spinner.
Strawberry Spinach Salad
This is the best strawberry spinach salad with feta and walnuts! Top it with an easy and delicious homemade poppy seed dressing. It’s definitely the perfect salad for a crowd!
Ingredients
Strawberry Spinach Salad:
- ¾ cup raw walnuts
- ½ small red onion (thinly sliced into half moons)
- 10 ounces fresh baby spinach (washed and dried)
- 1 pound fresh strawberries (hulled and sliced)
- ¾ cup block feta cheese (crumbled)
Poppy Seed Dressing:
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup white vinegar
- ¾ teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 teaspoon mustard
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- ⅓ cup vegetable oil
- ½ Tablespoon poppy seeds
Instructions
Strawberry Spinach Salad:
- Preheat the oven to 350 F.
- Thinly slice the red onion into half moon slices and then submerge the onion slices in a medium sized bowl of ice cold water. Let the onions soak in the water until it’s time to assemble the rest of the salad (about 20 minutes of soaking is generally the perfect amount of time). Soaking the onions allows the pungent onion flavor to dissipate into the water.
- Roughly chop the walnuts and bake for 6-8 minutes, or until toasted. Be sure to keep an eye on them, because nuts go from toasted to burnt quickly.
- When you remove the nuts from the oven, transfer them to a dish (they’ll keep cooking if you leave them on the hot baking sheet).
- Wash and dry the spinach using a salad spinner. Place the spinach in an extra large mixing bowl.
- Wash, dry, hull, and slice the strawberries. Add to the mixing bowl.
- Add the toasted walnuts, soaked onions, and crumbled feta to the mixing bowl. Top with the poppy seed dressing and toss to combine.
Poppy Seed Dressing:
- Combine the sugar, vinegar, salt, mustard, and onion powder in a blender. Blend until combined.
- Pour the oil in very slowly while the blender is going. Make sure not to add too much oil at once or it won’t emulsify correctly. If you don’t have a blender with an opening in the lid, you’ll have to turn the blender off every time you need to add a little more oil.
- Transfer the dressing to a small bowl or storage container. Stir in the poppy seeds.
Notes
Wait to dress the salad until immediately before serving.
The dressing will keep for up to 5 days in an airtight container in the fridge, but the salad is best made fresh.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
6Serving Size:
1/6Amount Per Serving: Calories: 348Total Fat: 27.5gSaturated Fat: 6.8gTrans Fat: 0.4gCholesterol: 27.3mgSodium: 658.3mgCarbohydrates: 20.2gNet Carbohydrates: 16.4gFiber: 3.8gSugar: 14.2gProtein: 8.4g
Nutrition information isn’t always accurate.
If you try this recipe, please let me know what you thought in the comments or on Instagram! @keytomylime #keytomylime
Be sure to pin this recipe for later!
The next time you’re looking for an amazing salad recipe, try this strawberry spinach salad with poppy seed dressing!
