Strawberry Salad, the Best Recipe for Sweet Tart Berries

It's time for Strawberry Salad to graduate from mild, flat spinach to flavor-forward. Sweet strawberries, along with peppery arugula, rich avocados, funky feta cheese, crisp cucumbers, and crunchy walnuts perfectly balance one another, and the finishing touch is the sweet tart Balsamic dressing. Shall we?

What Ingredients You Need for Strawberry Salad

The following ingredients are specifically what you need for this Strawberry Salad recipe, though the recipe is endlessly flexible and the ingredients can be substituted to suit your preferences and what's locally and seasonally available to you:

Fresh/refrigerator ingredients:

• strawberries
• avocado
• arugula
• romaine lettuce
• cucumber
• feta cheese
• red onion
• garlic

Dry/pantry ingredients:

• walnuts
• Balsamic vinegar
• olive oil
• Dijon mustard

Buying and Storing Strawberries, the Pro-Tips

When is Strawberry Season?

Peak strawberry season starts in early Spring and lasts through early Fall, varying slightly by region. Personally, I find strawberries direct from the farmers' market (southern California) are the absolute sweetest in May and June.

However, you will find strawberries in grocery stores even through fall and winter because California can grow strawberries year-round!

Additional Ingredients Notes and Resources

Arugula. The arugula variety that's most widely available in grocery stores is the small arugula leaves sometimes labeled "baby arugula" in plastic bags or clamshells. Arugula labeled "wild" has a sharper taste. Sometimes you may find large leaves of arugula, which has a similar flavor, but is much less bitter.

Feta. Because strawberries are sweet, feta cheese is a perfect balance taste-wise because it is salty and slightly funky. I buy mine from either Bristol Farms or Whole Foods.

Walnuts. Shockingly, organic, whole walnuts are a great deal at Costco. Buy them in bulk, keep a mason jar of them on your counter to eat weekly, and put the rest in the freezer for longer term storage.

Pickled onions. I make Perfect Pickled Onions every week as literally the only food I "meal prep" for the week. You can also simply slice fresh onions paper-thin and soak them in ice water for 10-15 minutes before adding to the salad.

Balsamic vinegar. Balsamic vinegar is a natural vinegar made from grapes, which puts it in the same family as red wine, white wine, and other wine vinegars, though balsamic vinegar is truly in a class of its own. You can use a commercial-grade balsamic vinegar, which has higher acidity suitable for dressing, and is more affordable than a luxe, aged vinegar made in Modena Italy. Generally, a balsamic vinegar off the grocery store shelf in the $12-$20 range will work. This balsamic vinegar was a gift and is very good.

Olive oil. Use the highest quality extra virgin olive oil you can afford, preferably with a recent Harvest Date on the bottle, not just the Expiration Date. I used this boutique brand of organic California olive oil for this recipe. This is a more widely available high quality olive oil that I use for every day cooking, though it is not organic.

All other fresh herbs and produce from either the Santa Monica Farmers' Market on Wednesday, Mar Vista Farmers Market on Sunday, or Whole Foods Market when I can't find what I need at the farmers' market.

Quick Note on Black Pepper

Black pepper is absent from this dressing recipe and most other dressing recipes on this site. Unlike salt, which has no flavor itself but significantly enhances the flavor of other ingredients, black pepper has its own distinct flavor. It is a spice that should be thoughtfully added to recipes when needed. Treat black pepper as an optional table condiment that people can add to their final dish if they want, rather than an automatic, somewhat mindless, addition during cooking to a recipe.

Best Spring Salad Ideas Featuring Fruit

Strawberry Salad Ideas

This Strawberry Salad is based on my tried and true Salad Template that I've been using for years. The template tells you what kind of ingredient, and you can fill it in with whatever sweet, tart seasonal fruit from stone fruits like cherries and peaches through summer, figs in late summer, pears in fall, and persimmons in winter. You will never go wrong.

To make any other version of this salad, you will fill in these blanks, here are the best ideas:

Greens other than arugula that don't always have to be green!

• Butterhead. Soft and ruffly, looks very Spring-y. If you like the tenderness of arugula but want something with a much milder flavor, go for the butterhead!
• Romaine/Little Gems. Other than arugula, which is soft and tender in texture, I always prefer salad greens that are crunchy like Romaine, or its baby cousin, Little Gems.
• Radicchio. Even though it's not technically "green," radicchio will provide some bite like arugula does.
• Spinach. Of course, you can always go back to the classic Strawberry Spinach Salad pairing if you really wantttt

Cheese. Feta is always the favorite, the funk particularly complementary to sweet fruit, but any salty, fresh to semi-firm cheese works

• Goat Cheese/Chevre has a similar funk and bonus, it's made of goat milk, which might be more digestible for some people
• Ricotta salata sounds like ricotta, but is actually firm and salty so it's more like feta than cottage cheese-ish ricotta.
• Parm. The GOAT (but not goat) of firm, funky, salty cheese, make them into long paper thin shavings

Nuts or seeds of any kind to substitute for walnuts, but make sure they're toasted so they're crunchy! And if you really want to add another dimension of flavor to the salad, get nuts that have chili or Everything Bagel seasoning!

• Almonds, a classic match with strawberries
• Pistachios, another classic match with strawberries (though slightly more expensive)
• Pepitas, chile seasoned pepitas also bring some spice to add to the flavor balance

Dressing. High acid, sweet dressing like Balsamic Vinaigrette in the recipe below, super simple Apple Cider Vinaigrette, Hot Honey Balsamic, or the lemoniest Lemon Vinaigrette

Best Dressing for Strawberry Salad

Any salad with sweet, tart fruit as an ingredient is best with a similarly sweet, tart vinegar-based dressing, as opposed to a creamy dressing. For this Strawberry Salad, use a Classic Balsamic Dressing included as part of the recipe.

These are some additional dressing options for Strawberry Salad:

• Apple Cider Vinaigrette
• Hot Honey Balsamic Vinaigrette
• Lemoniest Lemon Vinaigrette
• Citrus Vinaigrette

Instructions for How to Make Strawberry Salad

Make the Classic Balsamic Dressing first, then assemble the Strawberry Salad.

Pro-tip: Because arugula is a delicate green and wilts almost immediately after dressing, drizzle with vinaigrette just before serving, or let the people eating dress their individual salads themselves just before eating.

Advance Prep, Leftovers, and Storage

Make the Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing up to five days in advance.

Slice the strawberries up to 1 day in advance.

Wash and prep the arugula up to 1 day in advance. Make sure the arugula is BONE-DRY before storing in refrigerator.

Once the salad has been dressed, leftovers of the salad do not keep well.

Tools and Equipment

You don't technically need any special equipment to make this Strawberry Salad. You can simply use a large knife and cutting board to chop all vegetables. However, that doesn't mean there are a couple of gadgets and tools that might make this salad even easier to throw together than it already is.

• Salad spinner - this has saved my sanity because wet, soggy greens are the worst, and arugula in particular needs to be BONE DRY to keep it from wilting.
• Chef's knife - my daily workhorse knife
• Cutting board - large and sturdy so you have enough surface area for all the fluffy greens, and doesn't move around on the countertop
• Japanese-style mandoline - to make lightning fast work of slicing the firmer vegetables. When you start eating a LOT of vegetables, this will be a lifesaver.

For the Hot Honey Balsamic Vinaigrette, these tools are also helpful

• BlendJet cordless personal blender - I don't know how I survived my salad days without this
• 2-ounce (4 tablespoons) liquid measuring cup
• Garlic press
• Mini whisk
• Wide-mouth mason jars and air-tight screw-on lids

What Else to Serve with Strawberry Salad

• Add cooked quinoa to give the salad a plant-based protein boost!
• Add 2 cups shredded cooked chicken breast to make it a hearty main dish salad
• Top with a generous piece of omega-3-rich salmon to make this an antioxidant-rich meal.

Best Wine Pairing with Strawberries

You have a couple of directions you can follow for wine pairing with strawberries, and this Strawberry Salad in particular. Either take the fragrance lead of the strawberries, or follow the sweet, salty, and sour flavors of the Balsamic Vinaigrette.

Salads dressed with vinaigrettes almost always calls for a high-acid white wine to match the high acidity of the dressing.

For something a little more fun, this wine is made from California-grown sangiovese, and fermented as whole clusters in a process called carbonic maceration so the wine has a slight natural fizz.

For more tips on pairing wine with food, check out this post about wines from Paso Robles, California, and this post about wines from Santa Barbara, California.