Delicious Strawberry Walnut Goat Cheese Salad with Basil Balsamic Vinaigrette
A delicious summer salad that encapsulates the delightful flavors of sweet summertime with sugar snap peas, juicy strawberries, pickled red onions, ripe avocado, creamy goat cheese, and maple toasted walnuts. All these flavors are tied together with an easy homemade basil vinaigrette that will make your taste buds sing with each glorious bite!
If you’ve been following me for a minute, you already know that mouthwatering salads are my JAM. This particular recipe is one that I love to make each summer when I’m craving fresh strawberries. I head to my local farm stand and grab everything that goes into this salad.
The first time I ever tried a strawberry salad, was when I was just a teenager at my first waitressing job, working at the local ninety-nine restaurant. L-O-L. It’s great summer money when you’re 16 years old and live in a tourist-mobbed ski town. A strawberry salad was a seasonal item and I remember thinking there were so many ways to make the salad better and less, well… boring. They used a poppyseed dressing which was overly sweet combined with the already sweet strawberries, in my opinion. And that’s the story of how this strawberry walnut goat cheese salad was first conceived.
The details of this salad are quite simple & take just a few steps:
quick pickled red onions
simple basil VINAIGRETTE
easy maple toasted walnuts
assemble the salads!
Let’s talk about this balsamic vinaigrette
Super simple, basic ingredients like fresh garlic, basil, and oil & vinegar…but the quality of the ingredients is key, especially when it comes to vinegar and oil in vinaigrette. You will absolutely taste the difference in quality that you use.
For the balsamic vinegar, you want to use high quality that is aged, as it will tend to be sweeter and thicker than the low-quality brands, which will be very acidic to taste. Here’s one that’s middle of the road when it comes to price – Colavita. If you need a touch of sweetness in the vinaigrette, add a couple of teaspoons of maple syrup or honey.
The same goes for the extra virgin olive oil, I keep my cooking olive oil separate from the higher quality brands that I use exclusively for vinaigrettes. In extra virgin olive oil for a vinaigrette, I look for the words “first cold press”, and “premium” and also sourced from Italy.
I love tossing salads with the dressing in a salad bowl ahead of time, BUT…
Due to the acidity and tang already in the salad from the pickled red onions, I prefer to serve this salad with the vinaigrette on the side so everyone can spoon the vinaigrette on their salad, to taste. In my opinion, you really don’t need much, just a little drizzle to compliment the other flavors!
Minute candied walnuts… no brainer!
These maple candied walnuts are so incredibly easy to make, and so much better than store-bought candied walnuts. You simply toast raw walnuts in a skillet with a couple of tablespoons of real maple syrup until they look nice and toasty-candied like in the picture above.
Customize your salad
- Grilled chicken or grilled salmon are both my favorite proteins to pair this salad with!
- Feta cheese makes a great substitution for the goat cheese, I love this salad both ways.
- Skip the pickling and just used sliced raw red onion
Make strawberry walnut cheese salad ahead of time
Bringing this salad to a friend’s house for dinner?
This is an easy salad to pack up and bring somewhere. You can pickle the onions, make the vinaigrette, and candy the walnuts all in advance. Keep everything in its respective mason jar and toss the walnuts into a sandwich bag. Place all the salad ingredients in a large salad serving bowl, cover tightly and refrigerate. Only the salad bowl requires refrigeration.
When it’s time to serve, throw the pickled onions and walnuts on top, and let people self-serve with salad tongs and the jar of vinaigrette on the side.
Handy tip if preparing ahead!
Keep the avocados from browning by drizzling the slices with fresh lemon juice.
Check out some
Other Salad Recipes
Strawberry Walnut Goat Cheese Salad with Basil Balsamic Vinaigrette
Ingredients
Method
- In a small saucepan, bring the vinegar, water, and sugar to a simmer. Meanwhile, place your red onion slices into a large mason jar, or bowl that has a tight fitting lid.
- Pour simmering vinegar mixture into the jar with the red onions. Cover with a tight-fitting lid and shake vigorously. Let sit for 30 minutes.
- Combine all vinaigrette ingredients in a medium or small mason jar with a tight fitting lid. Shake vigorously and set aside.
- In a medium cast iron pan or skillet, heat the maple syrup over medium high heat. Add the walnuts and sauté for 2-3 minutes until they become slightly brown and candied and there is no longer maple syrup in the skillet.
- In salad serving bowls, place a handful of lettuce in the bottom of each bowl. Splitting the salad ingredients into quarters, follow with the pickled red onion, sugar snap peas, avocado, goat cheese and then the walnuts. Spoon over the basil vinaigrette to taste.
