Nothing says spring like a strawberry salad with refreshing cucumbers and arugula. And although we’re well into May, we haven’t had “spring” here on the Chesapeake due to a 3 week holding pattern of cold rain. Well, today finally, the sun is shining! Although just for a few hours. So let’s take a moment to celebrate sunshine and remember that spring feeling!

This salad is so easy and can just be thrown together in a matter of minutes. Gather your arugula, slice the cucumbers and strawberries, then very thinly slice the vidalia onion. If you can’t find a vidalia, soak your regular onion slices in water for about 20 minutes to take the edge off. Be sure to dry well before adding to the salad.

Strawberry Arugula Salad

3 cups arugula
1 1/2 cup sliced strawberries
1 cup sliced, halved cucumbers
1/4 sliced vidalia onion
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup crumbled or chunked Feta

Next, make your dressing. I was fortunate enough to have a guest give me a bottle of Toasted Walnut Olive Oil. If you can get your hands on that, do use it. It adds a total new richness to any salad dressing. We happened to have two people on board who could not eat walnuts so I made them a separate dressing with just plain olive oil.

Dressing

1/3 cup Toasted Walnut Olive Oil (or regular)
1/4 cup White Balsamic vinegar
1 heaping tablespoon Dijon mustard

Whip the salad dressing ingredients together.

To serve, I kept the Feta Cheese and Walnuts in separate bowls for guests to add as they please. This goes great with any heavy meal. And this evening it was pizza. A perfect compliment!

Now let”s hope for some sun here!!!