Cranberry Spinach Salad with Cashews and Goat Cheese and Lemon-Honey Poppy Seed Dressing. Delicious, healthy salad with easy ingredients.
I love spinach salad and make it all the time using different kinds of ingredients. These days I really like cashews so this salad features cashews, goat cheese, and dried cranberries. The dressing is easy to make at home and super delicious: I mixed olive oil, freshly squeezed lemon juice, honey, poppy seeds and stirred it altogether until smooth. So easy and very tasty!
This photo shows all ingredients that go into this salad (except for the salad dressing): spinach, cashews, goat cheese, and cranberries. Easy!
This is a perfect salad for winter months when we all need extra vitamins and nutrition. It has lots of good fats: olive oil and cashews.
After you make this spinach salad and mix it with the salad dressing, add the goat cheese last, on top of the salad. You can mix it in right in the salad, too, but it gets creamy really fast which you might actually like or you might not. So, keep this in mind. Enjoy!
Cranberry Spinach Salad with Cashews and Goat Cheese
Ingredients
Salad ingredients:
- 4 oz baby spinach
- ½ cup cashews roasted
- ¼ cup dried cranberries
- 2 oz goat cheese
Salad dressing:
- ¼ cup olive oil
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice freshly squeezed
- 1 tablespoon poppy seeds
Instructions
- In a salad bowl, combine baby spinach, cashews, and cranberries. Do not add goat cheese yet.
- In a separate small bowl, combine salad dressing ingredients: olive oil, honey, lemon juice, and poppy seeds. Whisk until well-combined.
- Pour the salad dressing over the salad, and mix. Do not add all of the salad dressing at once - add just enough to coat the salad to your taste. Top with crumbled goat cheese.
Nutrition
The nutritional information on this website is only an estimate and is provided for convenience and as a courtesy only. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed. It should not be used as a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
Definitely needs "sprucing up" as one comment suggested. I added 1/2 tsp. sugar, 1/4 tsp. salt, and a 1/8 tsp. pepper. So much more taste and the olive oil was not as strong.
Thank you for this helpful feedback!
Can I substitute sesame seeds for the poppy seeds? Or what else could I use?
Judy, you can use sesame seeds here if you like - they would be delicious!
Can I substitute sesame seeds for poppy seeds?
Yes, you can. I would toast the sesame seeds in the preheated oven at 350 F for about 10 minutes on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet until golden brown. They taste so much better when toasted!
My family and I tried this recipe and it is delicious. Only thing we did different was spruce up the dressing a little bit and added pickled beets. It is an amazing salad. Thank you
I am glad you gave this recipe a try and that it was a success! Thanks for taking the time to comment! Love the addition of beets!
Wow! I saw this recipe yesterday and tonight realized
I had all the ingredients on hand. Made the Cranberry Spinach Cashew Goat Cheese Salad and it was really delicious! Will be making it again and passing on recipe to friends who I think will enjoy it too. I made as simple EVOO, balsamic vinegar dressing with freshly ground pepper and Sicilian sea salt. So easy. Thanks ever so much for sharing recipe. Photo was very appealing too.
Emily, thank you so much for such a generous comment - it means a lot! I am glad you found my recipe and found the time to comment, too! 🙂
I don't give 5* ratings too easily, but this was really good. I followed this exactly according to the instructions, and my wife and I both liked it a lot.
Mel, I am so happy to hear that! Thank you for taking the time to leave such a positive comment and the 5-star review - I really appreciate it! 🙂
This Cranberry Spinach Salad with Cashews and Goat Cheese is absolutely delicious! I added a bit of Kikkoman Ponzu Citrus Seasoned Dressing & Sauce for an added twist of flavor. Yummy! Best paired with Vitasoy Lychee Flavor Vita Juice Drink.
Glad the recipe was enjoyed! 🙂
What can I sub for goat cheese, don't care for feta either....
Try blue cheese or shredded Parmesan.