Hi Friends! Today’s summer recipe is a simple spinach salad with chicken and strawberries!I know, strawberries in a spinach salad? Trust me it is absolutely divine! And now is the time to use those strawberries because it is strawberry season! This is so simple but it tastes oh so glorious! So without further ado, let’s begin!

Ingredients:

• 1 bag/container of fresh baby spinach leaves, washed
• 1 quart strawberries
• 1/2 red onion
• 3/4 cup pecans
• 3/4 cup crumbled feta
• Cooked Chicken (I used 2 leftover chicken breast, you could also grill it fresh or use rotisserie chicken) ***Chicken is optional- This is great without  chicken too!

Wash and put your fresh baby spinach in a large bowl. I have a little romaine with mine because I was trying to use it up. You could use really any kind of lettuce but this is so nice with the spinach for a change.

Hull, wash, cut and quarter your strawberries. Yummm!

Cut your half onion into half again (so its quartered) and slice thin slices- it makes a really nice salad bite size.

Cut your cooked chicken into bite size pieces (note if you are grilling it fresh, you may want to put it on the salad in slices). Any cooked chicken will work including rotisserie chicken – you just need to discard the skin and bones and cut it into bite size pieces.

Now add your ingredients on top of the lettuce.

Notice the pecans on the left side of the bowl above. I chose plain pecans. You could also use the sugared kind of pecans. Or use sliced almonds or sunflower seeds, or skip them and maybe do dried cranberries.

For the crumbled feta, I chose to leave mine in a little bowl on the side so people could put on as much or as little as they choose.

Now it’s time to toss the salad. Isn’t it beautiful?

Let’s serve it up!

Now let’s add a little feta.

That’s perfect!

Now for dressing, I kept it simple. I had 2 choices, a balsamic vinaigrette, and a Greek yogurt strawberry poppyseed. Uh… they were both fantastic. I mean Ah-mazing! I found these dressings in the refrigerated section right in the produce department.

I served it with Hawaiian Dinner Rolls and I had banana bread for dessert. It was delicious!

You can see it really is an easy meal to put together! And it is so delicious! This would be perfect if you were having some friends over and you didn’t want to slave all day cooking. This comes together really fast. You also could cook the chicken up on the grill while they are there and bring the fresh smell of barbecue into the equation.

There is just something so special about that taste of the juicy sweet strawberries on the delicate baby spinach! It is so pretty, the beautiful red berries against the dark green leaves! And throw in some protein with that chicken and the nuts and you have a real power source for energy!

My kids use to love a story called “The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear” by Don and Audrey Wood. The pictures are mesmerizing!  It’s about this little mouse who finds a delicious red ripe strawberry growing in the garden, almost as big as he is! He pulls that giant strawberry into his little mouse house. And the only way to keep it from the Big Hungry Bear is to share half of it with you, the reader. It is the sweetest story! And it really captures the essence of not only how sweet and delectable strawberries are in the summertime, but it is a picture of how sweet and precious friendship and sharing can be!

And so, that makes this delicious spinach salad with chicken and red ripe strawberries the perfect dish to share with a friend! It’s too delicious to keep it a secret!

I hope you have a fantastic week!

I’ll be back Friday with another post!

Love Always,

Amy

“‘We’ll be friends forever, won’t we, Pooh?’ asked Piglet. ‘Even longer,’ Pooh answered.”   ~Winnie The Pooh