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For years, I thought salads had to look a certain way—bland iceberg lettuce, salty croutons, and a thick, creamy dressing. I ate them… but I didn’t love them. That all changed when I realized how fresh, vibrant, and satisfying salads can actually be.
This strawberry mixed greens salad is one of my favorites. It’s all about the balance—crisp greens, sweet fruit, creamy avocado, and that bright strawberry basil vinaigrette that brings everything to life. This is the kind of salad you’ll actually crave. Enjoy!
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What is a Mixed Greens Salad?
A mixed green salad is a simple salad made with a variety of leafy greens—like spring mix, spinach, arugula, or lettuce—topped with fresh ingredients and a dressing. It’s known for being light, flexible, and easy to customize based on what you have on hand.
This recipe stands out because it’s more balanced and satisfying—with fruit, healthy fats, crunch, and a homemade strawberry basil dressing that adds fresh, vibrant flavor.
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How to Make Mixed Greens Salad
This mixed greens salad recipe is filled with these greens, plus tangy green apple, creamy avocado, and crunchy almonds. Seriously, this salad is the perfect meal when your sweet tooth comes calling and you’re trying to eat healthy.
1. Wash and dry greens
A recent study done by Consumer Reports says that we should all be washing any produce that comes into our cooking spaces, whether “pre-washed”, organic or otherwise. This is because even those mixed greens carefully washed by well meaning producers can still contain contaminants from E. coli, chemicals and more.
2. Chop apples, avocado and cucumber
I like to chop them all into bite-size pieces (the smaller, the better).
3. Make the Strawberry viniagarette
Combine dressing ingredients in a high-speed blender or food processor and puree into the best dressing you’ve ever had with mixed greens.
4. prepare the plate
Add the mixed greens first, and then toppings to the plate. Drizzle dressing on top and enjoy!
Make-Ahead Tips
If you want this salad for work, prep it all in a mason jar. It’s seriously so easy! Simply layer the ingredients in the mason jar. Keep the strawberry dressing in a separate container until time to eat. When you’re ready to eat, pour the dressing on top, give the mason jar a good shake, and enjoy!
Strawberry Mixed Greens Salad
Jen HansardIngredients
- 4 cup spring mix greens loosely packed
- 1 cucumber thinly sliced
- 1 green apple diced
- 1 avocado sliced
- ¼ cup sliced almonds
Dressing
- 1 cup strawberries diced
- 6 fresh basil fresh, roughly chopped
- 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
- 4 tsp lemon juice
- 2 tsp pure maple syrup
- pinch sea salt, unrefined
- pinch black pepper, ground ground, to taste
Instructions
- Arrange salad ingredients on plates.
- Puree the dressing ingredients in a blender or food processor. Taste and add more salt and pepper, if needed.
- Drizzle some of the dressing over salad (you may not need all of it). Eat immediately.
Recipe Notes
- Swap mixed greens with the leafy greens of your choice.
- Oil-free? Omit the olive oil. It’ll still be delicious and less caloric.
- Lemon Vinaigrette would also be delicious on this recipe.
- Add the nuts or seeds of your choice for more healthy fats + protein.
Nutrition
Common Questions
Yes! If you have a favorite dressing, feel free to swap out my Strawberry Vinaigrette. Yet I do encourage you to make it one time like this because it’s out-of-this-world delicious!
You sure can. You can swap it for any leafy green you prefer or have on hand. You might check out our Leafy Greens Guide for more inspiration.
In all my salads, I try and use some sorta nuts, seeds or protein to help me stay full. A salad is typically a meal for me, which means it needs a variety of fiber, healthy fats, protein and carbs to keep me full until the next meal.
This salad has been added to my “keeper” list. The strawberry dressing is a delicious delight on the tongue! I try not to eat oil and so I left it out, and the dressing was light, creamy, and tasted of summer. I really enjoyed this recipe. Thank you!
This salad is SO DELICIOUS! I love the crunch of the green apple, almonds and cucumber and the creaminess of the avocado. I have to say, though, the dressing was the star of the show. Fresh strawberries lemon juice, olive oil, basil,maple syrup…I never would have thought it would be THAT yummy. It’s such a pretty pinkish color, too. I couldn’t find fresh basil, so I bought a tube of smooshed-up basil and used 1 Tbsp instead of 2, and it tasted great to me. On top of all that, it was very filling and satisfying. I will be making this again, for sure!
Day 1! I love the strawberry dressing, my husband not so much. He is a die hard Kraft French dressing guy! Loved that it had no added sugar
This recipe is quite delicious, I loved all the crunch and the taste of the strawberries. It didn’t look as appetizing as I marinated the apple and avocado in some of the sauce (about 1 hour) to camouflage the avocado as was recommended to my by someone.
I will definitely make this salad again, I just haven’t decided if I’ll make with or without the avocado.
I would say it is an acquired taste, and I have yet to acquire it.
You can def skip the avocado! We always encourage our rawkstars to make the recipes work for YOU! We want to make your tastebuds happy – make any necessary changes! 😉
Yum! Great flavors but ran into a little problem making the dressing. There wasn’t enough volume to blend it properly so I needed to double the dressing recipe to get enough in there to contact the blades well enough (full size blender though so if you’ve got a smaller one you’d probably be fine). Flavors are excellent so I’m happy to have extra.
My husband is allergic to almonds so substituted sunflower seeds which were just fine. Added a little grilled chicken to appease the little people that didn’t want only plants for dinner
So fun to share with the whole family! Great sub with the sunflower seeds! Lots of people like chicken with this one!