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Baby Arugula and Strawberry Salad

Baby Arugula and Strawberry Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Prepare pecans: Preheat oven to 325°F. Place pecans in a small bowl and drizzle with melted butter. Combine salt, sugar and black pepper in another bowl and sprinkle mixture over nuts. Toss lightly to evenly coat. Arrange nuts in an even layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and cool.
  2. Prepare dressing: Place lemon juice, oil and vinegar into a small bowl and whisk together to fully combine. Season to taste with salt.
  3. Prepare salad: Rinse arugula, spin dry then place in a large salad bowl. Drizzle with dressing and lightly toss.
  4. To serve from bowl: Drop strawberries and pecans into bowl and garnish with a sprinkle of sea salt and pepper, as well as cheese, if using.
  5. To serve on plates: Divide greens between four plates. Tuck strawberries and pecan into the salad on each plate, distributing evenly. Sprinkle each plate with sea salt and pepper, as well as cheese, if using. Serve immediately.
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Baby Arugula and Strawberry Salad

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Baby arugula tossed in a tangy balsamic dressing, topped with toasted pecans and sliced strawberries…

  • clock icon
    15 MIN
  • 4 SERVINGS
Baby Arugula and Strawberry Salad

BABY ARUGULA AND STRAWBERRY SALAD is fresh and fabulous!

We’re quite smitten with this fantastic salad idea that checks off our key objectives: it’s healthy and super flavourful, quick to make, and it only requires 11 ingredients to make both the salad and dressing. We know you’re going to love our BABY ARUGULA AND STRAWBERRY SALAD!

Now if salads are your thing, we have a ton of recipes that you’ll find as wonderfully delicious as this one – head HERE to see all of our salad recipes in our FAVOURITE SALADS COLLECTION. We’ve even gone a step further and provided links to our top three most popular salads down below.

As with all of our recipes, and especially with our salads and vegetable sides, we’re suggesting you use locally grown farm-fresh organic ingredients. In a perfect world, this salad is made using freshly picked baby arugula, strawberries, peppers and carrots. You will taste a difference.

Let’s get to it, shall we? Here’s how to make this BABY ARUGULA AND STRAWBERRY SALAD:

Ingredients for Baby Arugula and Strawberry Salad

THE GATHERING

As we mentioned off the top, there’s no lengthy list of ingredients to craft this delicious salad. We suggest keeping all of the ingredients on hand throughout the warm weather months. This salad pairs really well as a simple side with grilled veggies, fish, poultry and meats, and if you’re serving a meal al fresco, this is the salad that belongs on or next to your dinner plates.

Fresh baby arugula

ARUGULA

Arugula is a tasty, leafy salad green with an almost tart, peppery flavour. If you’ve never tried it, make sure to chomp on a few leaves before beginning the recipe just to get a sense of its flavour – pretty refreshing, right? We used baby arugula because these young, freshly sprung leaves have an extra fresh taste. They’re also ready to be enjoyed without too much fuss, just give them a quick rinse before making the salad. So easy!

Ingredients for a very simple oil and balsamic vinegar dressing

DRESSING

This dressing may go down as one of our easiest ever. Although we could have used our popular ASIAN DRESSING, CREAMY BUTTERMILK or HONEY CITRUS VINAIGRETTE, keeping things uncomplicated was right. Lemon, aged balsamic and EVOO are a perfect trio, and we even crafted the quantity specific for the recipe. Whisk, drizzle, toss, serve! 

Toasted sweet and salt pecans

PECAN ACCENT

Please find the 10 minutes needed to toast up the pecans for this recipe. We use pecans a lot for their buttery, almost creamy texture. Tossing them in butter with a smidge of sugar, salt and pepper before toasting them is brilliant. They are quite perfect prepared this way, so remember they’re for the salad, not an instant snack!

Freshly sliced strawberries

STRAWBERRIES

For some of you, I’m saving the best for last. What’s not to love about freshly sliced strawberries tucked into a salad? In this recipe, they’re truly heavenly. There are two important things to remember, the first being not toss the berries with the arugula and dressing. Instead, drop them in amongst the leaves with the pecans after the greens have been tossed. This prevents them from going mushy. Second thing is to not slice them too thinly; you want big bites of berry when you eat this salad. Those pops of flavour are so memorable.

Add cheese such as goat's cheese, blue or crumbled feta

SAY CHEESE

Hurray! We wanted to share a wonderful discovery we made during the testing of this recipe. It involves the addition of cheese to this salad at the very end. We’ve tried a sprinkling of crumbled feta, goat’s cheese and also a fragrant blue cheese. They’re all so different we can’t decide which we like more. If this sounds like your salad dream come true, please experiment as we did and then let us know what you think. Saying cheese is a delicious idea!

A tiny bowl with sea salt flakes

SALT AND PEPPER

Our editor Kerrin will tell you, “Nik puts ‘season with salt and pepper’ as a last direction on a lot of our recipes.” Sure, you’ll see it on this recipe too, but this time, I’m making a special point of mentioning it. Adding a sprinkle of salt and pepper to this salad is essential to pop the flavours of the arugula and strawberries. If you can, try to use sea salt flakes with their distinctive crunch (link to purchase down below).

Baby Arugula and Strawberry Salad

YOUR SERVE

There are lots of different ways you can enjoy this salad. It makes a perfect light lunch or dinner, and as mentioned above, it also works as a side. Try it with our GRILLED CHICKEN or BARBECUED SALMON plus these GRILLED LAMB CHOPS or FLANK STEAK. It’s a nice refreshing side for anything, really.

Baby Arugula and Strawberry Salad

BABY ARUGULA AND STRAWBERRY SALAD is fresh and fabulous!

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Baby Arugula and Strawberry Salad

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Baby Arugula and Strawberry Salad

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Ingredients

  • 4 cups baby arugula leaves, rinsed and spun dry
  • 1 cup strawberries, hulled and sliced
  • crumble of feta, goat’s cheese or blue cheese (optional)
  • sea salt flakes and black pepper for seasoning
  • For the pecans:
  • ½ cup pecans
  • 1 tablespoon butter, melted
  • ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
  • ¼ teaspoon black pepper
  • ½ teaspoon brown sugar
  • For the dressing:
  • juice from ½ a lemon (about 2 tablespoons)
  • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon aged balsamic vinegar
  • pinch of kosher salt

Directions

  1. Prepare pecans: Preheat oven to 325°F. Place pecans in a small bowl and drizzle with melted butter. Combine salt, sugar and black pepper in another bowl and sprinkle mixture over nuts. Toss lightly to evenly coat. Arrange nuts in an even layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and cool.
  2. Prepare dressing: Place lemon juice, oil and vinegar into a small bowl and whisk together to fully combine. Season to taste with salt.
  3. Prepare salad: Rinse arugula, spin dry then place in a large salad bowl. Drizzle with dressing and lightly toss.
  4. To serve from bowl: Drop strawberries and pecans into bowl and garnish with a sprinkle of sea salt and pepper, as well as cheese, if using.
  5. To serve on plates: Divide greens between four plates. Tuck strawberries and pecan into the salad on each plate, distributing evenly. Sprinkle each plate with sea salt and pepper, as well as cheese, if using. Serve immediately.

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