Strawberry Spinach Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing is the perfect spring inspired salad. This is a great side dish for Easter, but it’s easy enough for lunch any day of the week.
The homemade poppy seed dressing is tangy and refreshing, and you can make it ahead and store it in the fridge for easy meal prep!
Strawberry Spinach Salad with Walnuts and Feta Cheese
This is one of my favorite salads, it’s so special:
- it has baby spinach
- sliced cucumber
- lots of strawberries, obviously
- some fresh herbs and chopped walnuts for pops of flavor
- and lashings of homemade lemon poppy seed salad dressing (do you even say lashings for dressing, or is that just for butter? I don’t know, but I don’t even care. Because this salad is too delicious.)
Ingredients you’ll need
Here is a visual overview of the ingredients in the recipe. Scroll down to the recipe at the bottom for quantities.
Ingredient notes
- Herbs: Use soft herbs in the salad – things like basil, mint and/or parsley taste absolutely delicious in this recipe.
- Walnuts: Feel free to leave these out if needed, or use different nuts if you don’t like walnuts. Pecans or almonds are very delicious, too. You can lightly toast them before using them in the salad for extra flavor.
- Dressing: I used my homemade lemon poppy seed salad dressing, but store-bought is just fine if you’re in a hurry. If you want to try making your own but aren’t sure – it’s very simple to put together. Just a case of measuring out some stuff and whisking it together. I’ve also made this salad with White Balsamic Vinaigrette before, and it’s also delicious.
How to make a Strawberry Spinach Salad
make dressing and prep all ingredients add salad ingredients to a bowl pour over dressing serve immediately!
- Make the dressing
- Chop the nuts
- Slice the other salad ingredients
- Add salad to bowl and pour over dressing
- Serve right away!
Recipe tips
- I chop the walnuts first before I slice the rest of the ingredients, because I only want to use one chopping board. Slicing fruit and veggies makes the board damp, and damp walnuts get sticky and annoying when chopping them… So I always get them out of the way first.
- The strawberries I usually slice in a crazy disarray for salads. Some rounds, some half moons, some wedges… I find that keeps the salad really interesting.
- You can opt to cube the cucumber, but I find it prettier in slices. Plus, my kids love eating cucumber slices, so they pick these out of the salad and happily munch on them. Parenting win!
- Toss the salad as carefully as possible, because you don’t want to smash the strawberries.
Make ahead tips
If you want to prep this ahead of time, you’ll need to keep the ingredients separated before you’re ready to serve it:
- the dressing in a separate jar
- the baby spinach, cucumber, strawberries and onion in a covered salad bowl
- the feta in a separate sealed container (or just get a container of crumbled feta ate the store and keep it in there)
- and the chopped walnuts in a separate, airtight container.
Keep everything refrigerated in their separate containers until right before serving (the walnuts are fine on the counter if you prefer, everything else must go in the fridge). I do not recommend making this more than one day ahead.
Only combine/dress when you’re ready to eat. That way you can even bring this salad to picnics, potlucks or as a BBQ side, or use this recipe to meal prep your lunch.
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Printable Recipe Card
Strawberry Spinach Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing
Strawberry Spinach Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing is the perfect spring inspired salad. Full of fresh, seasonal flavor and make ahead friendly!
made it? tap the stars to add your rating!
Recipe details
Ingredients
- 1 cup lemon poppy seed salad dressing
- 1 (10-oz) bag baby spinach
- 1 pound strawberries rinsed, hulled and sliced
- 1 medium cucumber washed and sliced
- 1 small red onion peeled, halved and thinly sliced
- 1 handful fresh herbs washed, patted dry and chopped
- ½ cup crumbled Feta cheese or more to taste
- ½ cup chopped walnuts
Instructions
- If you are making your own dressing, follow the instructions for this recipe (it makes about 1 cup, which is exactly what you need for this salad).
- To make the salad, add all salad ingredients to a large bowl. Pour over the dressing and gently toss. Serve immediately.
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Notes
Ingredient notes
- Herbs: Use soft herbs in the salad – things like basil, mint and/or parsley taste absolutely delicious in this recipe.
- Walnuts: Feel free to leave these out if needed, or use different nuts if you don’t like walnuts. Pecans or almonds are very delicious, too. You can lightly toast them before using them in the salad for extra flavor.
- Dressing: I used my homemade lemon poppy seed salad dressing, but store-bought is just fine if you’re in a hurry. If you want to try making your own but aren’t sure – it’s very simple to put together. Just a case of measuring out some stuff and whisking it together. I’ve also made this salad with White Balsamic Vinaigrette before, and it’s also delicious.
Recipe tips
- I chop the walnuts first before I slice the rest of the ingredients, because I only want to use one chopping board. Slicing fruit and veggies makes the board damp, and damp walnuts get sticky and annoying when chopping them… So I always get them out of the way first.
- The strawberries I usually slice in a crazy disarray for salads. Some rounds, some half moons, some wedges… I find that keeps the salad really interesting.
- You can opt to cube the cucumber, but I find it prettier in slices. Plus, my kids love eating cucumber slices, so they pick these out of the salad and happily munch on them. Parenting win!
- Toss the salad as carefully as possible, because you don’t want to smash the strawberries.
- To prep the salad ahead of time, store the dressing, the salad vegetables/strawberries, the walnuts and the feta cheese each in separate containers in the fridge for up to a day. Toss/dress right before serving.
Nutrition
Serving: 1servingCalories: 241kcalCarbohydrates: 17gProtein: 5gFat: 18gSaturated Fat: 2gSodium: 81mgPotassium: 723mgFiber: 5gSugar: 9gVitamin A: 6755IUVitamin C: 92.2mgCalcium: 135mgIron: 3.1mg
Nutrition is an estimate.
More recipe information
Recipe first published on 04/01/2018. Updated with new photos, better text and slight improvements to the recipe on 05/27/2021.
Megan says
Can this be made as a meal prep lunch?
Nora says
Hi Megan, sorry my reply is so late. I honestly don’t know. If you prepped the produce the night before and added the dressing right before eating the salad, it should be fine. But I don’t think the cut up strawberries would hold up for an entire week in the fridge. Hope that helps!