Strawberry Spinach Salad

The third and the last salad recipe is one of my favorite – Spinach and Strawberry salad with cottage cheese. Spinach, Strawberries and poppy seeds gel in nice and with sweet dressing and cottage cheese it’s totally yum. It may sound like an odd combination but believe me it’s an awesome combination too.

I tried this salad for the first time at one of our office potlucks. The dressing was slightly different and it had milk in it. I really enjoyed the combo and got the recipe from my colleague right away. But I am not posting that today. This recipe is from a calendar clipping. Yes the same calendar from where I got the vegetarian chili recipe or the chili sin carne. I love to collect the recipes from the clippings, books and what not? The dressing was slightly different and it used white wine vinegar and feta cheese. Instead I went with white balsamic and cottage cheese.

I have used balsamic vinegar in lot my recipes. A few recipes from the archives,

• Baked Asparagus
• Garden Veggie Salad
• Baked Portobello Mushroom Burger
• Pita Pocket Salad Wraps

So what is balsamic vinegar? It’s a popular condiment from Italy and it is basically the reduction of grapes especially from Trebbiano grape juice. White Balsamic is also the reduction of same grapes but cooked in low temperature to retain the clear color. You can find the health benefits of balsamic vinegar in my baked asparagus post. Both taste pretty much the same and in this salad I am using white balsamic so as retain the color of the cheese and salad. But you can always replace it with regular balsamic.

Now back to the recipe, (This serves 2. So adjust the quantity accordingly)

Ingredients:

• Baby Spinach – 1.5 cups
• Strawberries – 5
• Cucumber – 1
• Shaved Almonds – 2 tbsps
• Cottage Cheese – 3 tbsps

For the dressing:

• Honey – 1 tbsp
• Olive Oil – 1 tbsp
• Poppy Seeds – 1 tsp
• Salt – ¼ tsp
• Pepper Powder – ½ tsp
• White Balsamic Vinegar – 1 tbsp
• Lemon Juice – 2 tsps

Steps:

• Clean the spinach.

• Peel and dice the cucumber.
• Hull the straw better and chop them into halves.
• In a salad bowl, combine the spinach, almonds, strawberries and the cucumber and mix well.

• Drizzle the cottage cheese on top.
• For this dressing, I used my salad dressing mixer. Combined everything under dressing and mixed well. If you don’t have the dressing mixer whisk all the ingredients together.

• Just before serving add the dressing and serve chilled.

Notes:

• Cheese is optional. You can replace cottage cheese with feta.
• White wine vinegar, red wine vinegar or regular balsamic can used instead of white balsamic.
• As I used baby spinach, I didn’t chop the spinach. If you want smaller bites, chop the spinach.

• Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#62
• Also linking this to Valli’s ‘Cooking from Cookbook Challenge: March — Week 2‘

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Strawberry Spinach Salad

Prep Time

20 mins

Total Time

20 mins

 

A crunchy and a sweet salad with spinach, strawberries, cucumber and almonds with honey and white balsamic dressing.

Servings: 2

Author: Srividhya G

Ingredients

• Baby Spinach – 1.5 cups
• Strawberries – 5
• Cucumber - 1
• Shaved Almonds - 2 tbsps
• Cottage Cheese – 3 tbsps

For the dressing

• Honey – 1 tbsp
• Olive Oil – 1 tbsp
• Poppy Seeds – 1 tsp
• Salt – ¼ tsp
• Pepper Powder – ½ tsp
• White Balsamic Vinegar – 1 tbsp
• Lemon Juice - 2 tsps

Instructions

1. Clean the spinach.
2. Peel and dice the cucumber.
3. Hull the straw better and chop them into halves.
4. In a salad bowl, combine the spinach, almonds, strawberries and the cucumber and mix well.
5. Drizzle the cottage cheese on top.
6. For this dressing, I used my salad dressing mixer. Combined everything under dressing and mixed well. If you don’t have the dressing mixer whisk all the ingredients together.
7. Just before serving add the dressing and serve chilled.

Recipe Notes

Cheese is optional. You can replace cottage cheese with feta.
White wine vinegar, red wine vinegar or regular balsamic can used instead of white balsamic.
As I used baby spinach, I didn’t chop the spinach. If you want smaller bites, chop the spinach.