Spinach, Orange and Strawberry Salad

For Easter brunch, we squeezed a bunch of oranges and made mimosas.  I purposefully squeezed extra orange juice and used some for basting the ham. I had extra and remembered seeing a salad dressing made with orange juice. As it turned out, it was for a spinach salad with strawberries, daikon radish, and oranges.  That sounds great but I didn’t have any daikon radish so just left it out. I think the crunchiness would have been a really good addition though.  I went soft instead and added some chopped avocado.  It was a fantastic salad and my youngest claimed the leftovers to eat just before she went back to college the next day.

The original recipe in Raising the Salad Bar: Beyond Leafy Greens–Inventive Salads with Beans, Whole Grains, Pasta, Chicken, and More called for raspberry vinegar but I just used a light white wine vinegar.  I think the raspberry vinegar would be awesome and promptly bought some so I can try this again with it.  But it’s delicious with just the white wine vinegar I used, too.

Print Recipe

Spinach, Orange and Strawberry Salad from Raising the Salad Bar

Ingredients

Dressing

• 3 Tbs light vinegar
• 1/3 cup fresh orange juice
• 2 tsp maple syrup or honey
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• 2 tsp minced shallots
• 6 Tbs olive oil
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt

Salad

• 6-8 cups spinach leaves, washed and dried
• 1 avocado, cut into 1/2″ pieces roughly
• 2 oranges, peeled and chopped
• 10 strawberries, hulled and sliced

Instructions

For the dressing

• Whisk together all the dressing ingredients

For the salad

• Add all the salad ingredients to a bowl, then drizzle the dressing over, toss and serve.

I have made a handful of recipes from this book and really enjoy it. There is a nice mix of side salad, main dish salad, pasta salad and grain salad recipes to choose from. The directions are clear and there are pictures scattered throughout.