Strawberry Spinach Salad
To make Strawberry Spinach Salad, whisk a balsamic-honey dressing, then toss it with baby spinach, sliced strawberries, feta, and pecans right before serving.
Strawberries in salad make perfect sense once you stop treating fruit like it needs permission to enter the vegetable department. Sweet berries, baby spinach, salty feta, crunchy pecans, and thin red onion already cover most of the useful territory before the dressing even arrives. That dressing is olive oil, balsamic vinegar, honey, Dijon, salt, and black pepper, whisked until emulsified. Start with about two-thirds of it when tossing. Spinach and sliced strawberries are both delicate, and drowning them in dressing is the quickest way to turn a crisp salad into something that looks like it lost an argument in the refrigerator. Serve it immediately, while the spinach still has lift and the pecans still crunch. Feta or goat cheese both work, depending on whether you want a sharper salty crumble or a softer tang. This is a 15-minute salad, but it has enough contrast to feel finished: sweet, salty, acidic, creamy, crisp, and just a little peppery from the onion. No bacon required, although bacon has never respected jurisdiction.
