Honey recipes
Strawberry spinach salad with honey mustard dressing
Honey does not have to be the main ingredient to make a dish work. Here, a small amount softens the lemon and mustard in a dressing that lightly coats spinach, ripe strawberries and cucumber. Feta and toasted walnuts add contrast.
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From the honey kitchen
Strawberry spinach salad with honey mustard dressing
2 light mains or 4 side portions Easy
- Prep
- 15 min
- Cook / bake
- 5 min
- Total time
- 20 min
Equipment: Large salad bowl, small mixing bowl or jar, dry frying pan and salad spinner or clean towel.
Ingredients
Amounts are for the yield above. 1 tbsp = 15 ml, 1 tsp = 5 ml; use level measures for dry ingredients.
Salad
- 100 g baby spinach
- 250 g strawberries
- 150 g cucumber
- 75 g feta, crumbled
- 30 g walnuts, roughly chopped
Honey mustard dressing
- 20 g runny honey
- 10 g Dijon mustard
- 20 ml lemon juice
- 30 ml extra-virgin olive oil
- ⅛ tsp fine salt
- A little freshly ground black pepper
Step by step
Toast the walnuts
Warm a dry frying pan over medium heat. Add walnuts and toast for 3–5 minutes, shaking often, until fragrant. Tip onto a plate immediately and let them cool while you prepare the vegetables. Hot nuts can wilt the spinach.
Wash and dry
Wash the spinach and dry well in a spinner or clean towel. Rinse the strawberries, remove the stalks and quarter them, or halve smaller berries. Cut the cucumber lengthways, then into thin half-moons. Keep everything cool until ready to assemble.
Whisk the dressing
Whisk honey, mustard, lemon juice, salt and pepper until smooth. Add olive oil in a thin stream while whisking, or shake everything in a tightly closed jar. Taste on a spinach leaf. Add a few drops of lemon if too sweet or a teaspoon of water if the mustard is very strong.
Toss gently
Put spinach, strawberries and cucumber in a wide bowl. Add about two-thirds of the dressing and toss carefully with clean hands or salad servers. Add more dressing only if needed; the leaves should look lightly coated, not wet.
Finish and eat
Scatter over the feta and cooled walnuts. Serve immediately as a light meal for two or a side for four. Offer any remaining dressing separately rather than pouring it over the finished bowl.
A dressing that supports the fruit
Ripe strawberries are already sweet. Start with the measured honey rather than adding a freehand squeeze, then taste with a leaf: dressing tasted alone can seem sharper than it will in the salad. The mustard helps the oil and lemon stay mixed.
Dry leaves matter. Water left on the spinach dilutes the dressing and gathers at the bottom of the bowl. If washing ahead, keep the leaves chilled and loosely wrapped in a clean towel until you are ready to assemble.
Make it your own and keep it fresh
In pear season, replace the strawberries with thin slices of one large firm-ripe pear. Toasted pumpkin seeds can replace walnuts for a different crunch, but check all ingredient labels if cooking for someone with an allergy.
For make-ahead preparation, store washed produce, feta and dressing separately in the fridge and leave the cooled nuts dry. Dress only the amount you plan to eat. An assembled salad loses its texture quickly; refrigerate leftovers promptly and use the same day.
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