This is the BEST Strawberry Salad on this site!!! The dressing is what does it - although I leave out the poppy seeds - just personal preference! My hubby doesn't care for strawberry's but will eat this salad without a problem so will my 2 y/o. I've also added some chopped avocado or left out the mushrooms if I didn't have any....still a great salad! It's fine with just romaine lettuce and instead of chopped pecans (yummy) I find myself tossing in a handful of sunflower seed for a change also. I prefer the dressing at room temperature and I think it thickens up bit this way also. My alsolute favorite salad and it's converting alot of friends and family to salad eating too!
I used extra virgin reserve olive oil in this recipe as I always do for salad dressings because it is the best however next time I make this I will use vegetable oil as the recipe states. The olive oil was too heavy for the salad and I felt like I didn't do it justice. Toast the pecans in the microwave for a minute and a half for another added dimension. Next time I will cut the sugar down even more.
I made the dressing for this salad and used it on spinach mangoes and candied pecans and it was delicious. Every single person I made this salad for has asked for the recipe since then!
WOW! This was DELICIOUS! I used slightly less than 3/4 cup of vegetable oil all of the sugar (I first tried it with less and added in the rest as we liked it sweeter) deleted the poppy seeds and mushrooms toasted the pecans and added crumbled feta cheese. The strawberries were just perfect I used my Pampered Chef egg slicer to make perfect slices after I capped them and although I used mixed greens I think just using spinach would have made a prettier presentation. Thank you Leslie for the awesome post! We served this with "Perfect Baked Potato" and "Savory Garlic Marinated Steaks" from this site. Yum!
What a great salad! I'm not sure why it's called 'spicy' but it's the best strawberry salad recipe I've come across. Be sure to whisk or beat the dressing thoroughly - the sugar doesn't dissolve properly if not mixed well. The dressing tastes even better the second day. Thanks for a great recipe:)
OK! As a lot of the other "raters" I made a few changes: sliced almonds instead of pecan 1/2 cup of oil 1/4 cup sugar and since I didn't have dry mustard I used a teaspoon of a wholegrain dijon mustard and I left the mushrooms out. It was great! I will definitely make this again!
We really enjoyed this salad. I may cut down on the sugar next time but otherwise it was delicious and attractive!
Omitted the mushrooms because although we love mushrooms the combination of strawberries and mushrooms just didn't seem to work for us. I also added toasted almonds instead of the pecans and a bit of chopped scallions. Wonderful flavor with just he right crunch. I served with grilled chicken and it was very tasty.
This salad is absolutely wonderful. Crisp sweet crunch and colorful. I may cut down a bit on the sugar next time but otherwise fabulous.
pretty good; nothing spectacular but a good strawberry/chicken salad. I used all romaine lettuce and sliced toasted almonds.
