My sister Saydi whipped us up a salad when we were in Utah last and Grace and I fell in love with it. So we tried to reenact it here 🙂
It’s actually a salad we make ALL the time, but we realized a great “secret ingredient” is oranges. And we have gobs of those going on over here in the desert this time of year. Our trees are dripping with them right about now.
You cut them up and add bite-size pieces to the salad, but you also squeeze half an orange right onto the salad, which makes it so citrus-y and delicious.
Another secret ingredient is the dressing.
My sister whips up her own home-made dressings like nobody’s business but we’re not so hot at that. So we found this one that is SO good, and also so good on the marcos (I don’t do macros any more, but it’s pretty awesome to find a really tasty salad dressing with so little fat content). We used to be addicted to Briannas poppyseed dressing, but I think this one’s just as good but better for you (made with greek yogurt which helps).
Let’s get a closer look at that…
There we go. Good stuff right there.
We use this spring mix from Costco that’s already triple washed:
We caramelize our almonds by sautĂ©ing them in a pan with a little sugar sprinkled in (This, perhaps, cancels out the goodness of the dressing, but we’ll take it anyway 🙂
You just throw everything together and mix in the salad dressing and there you go: easy peasy goodness ready to set on the table.
Yum! Thank you!
Wait, I was hoping there’d be a list of ingredients!! I’m seeing spring mix, oranges, blueberries, avocado, strawberries, grapes, feta, something crunchy (?), and the poppyseed dressing. Did I miss anything? Mix it all together with a splash of the orange juice?
Hi Shawni – my mother (a fabulous cook) always said that the secret to a perfect salad was : something crunchy, something juicy, and something creamy. A couple examples: Spinach with toasted pecans (crunchy), strawberries (juicy), and goat cheese (creamy); or lettuce with celery (crunchy), orange (juicy), avocado (creamy). It's a great trick when you are trying to think of what to put in a salad. I would also add that no matter what you decide, always dry roast some seeds and/or nuts. I usually do a bowl of pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, and/or pecans about once a week and just leave them on the counter for easy grabbing. Enjoy!
Just adding here that this lovely salad you posted has my mother's "salad rule" – you have toasted almonds (crunchy), lots of fruit (juicy), and sprinkled feta (creamy – also the dressing is creamy, too). No wonder it was so delicious! 🙂