Today, I’ve teamed up with some talented blogger friends to share with you a complete 4 course meal, plus drinks! If we lived close together, it would be so fun to have a seasonal progressive dinner, going to each person’s house for a different course! But since we are spread out across the U.S. and Canada, we thought it would be fun to have a blog hop progressive dinner! Today, I’m sharing a salad portion of our Spring Progressive Dinner, this Citrus Berry Salad with Strawberry Vinaigrette! There is nothing more refreshing on a Spring day than a bright, colorful, juicy salad!
Start with fresh greens. I used Spring Mix and Baby Spinach. You could use ALL Baby Spinach, or green leaf lettuce, but I like the balance this gives to the sweet and tart fruit in the salad. It just pairs well!
Add in your pink grapefruit, cara cara oranges, kumquats, blackberries, strawberries, pistachios, and mozzarella cheese. If you have never eaten a kumquat before (like my kids), you will be surprised to learn you eat the rind with the fruit. It is not bitter like oranges are. They are tart with a sweet and juicy center!
You can choose to lightly toss and serve into bowls at this point, or you can drizzle the vinaigrette over first, then serve into bowls. I wanted to arrange the ingredients to look pretty first in the bowl, so I did this step first:
The Strawberry Vinaigrette is so yum. I love the subtle taste of the shallots, and the sweetness of the strawberries. You could substitute the sugar and fresh strawberries for strawberry jam if you wanted!
Drizzle over the salad, until everything is lightly coated.
This salad is so refreshing and I think one of my favorite parts was the nutty pistachio crunch that added just the right amount of salt and crunch to balance out the sweet and tart of the fruit.
Ingredients
- 2 Cara Cara Oranges, sliced without rind
- 7-8 Kumquats, sliced
- 1/2 Pink Grapefruit, sectioned, demembraned
- 5 medium Strawberries, sliced
- 5-6 Blackberries, sliced
- 1/4 c. pistachios, chopped
- 3 mozzarella cheese sticks, sliced into small bite-size pieces
- 3 c. Spring Mix
- 3 c. Baby Spinach
- 1/2 c. Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
- 1/4 c. Apple Cider Vinegar (or Red Wine Vinegar)
- 1 T. minced Shallot
- 1/2 t. Salt
- 1/2 t. Pepper
- 2 T. Sugar
- 2 Strawberries, mashed
Instructions
- Wash and dry salad ingredients before use. Place Spring Mix and Baby Spinach in large bowl. Add remaining ingredients on top. Set Aside
- Combine vinaigrette ingredients in small bowl and whisk for 2-3 minutes until emulsified. Drizzle over salad with chopped/sliced ingredients sitting on top. Lightly toss to coat entire salad with vinaigrette and serve.
Make sure to check out these other delicious recipes, as part of our Spring Progressive Dinner!
Drinks:
The Chronicles of Home – Key Lime Martini
Appetizer:
Finding Silver Pennies – Coronation Chicken
Salads:
Craftberry Bush – Quinoa Beet Salad
Shades of Blue Interiors – Citrus Berry Salad
Entree:
Town & Country Living – Light Macaroni And Cheese
Side:
Ella Claire Blog -10 Minute Bacon Asparagus
Dessert:
This looks so yum, thanks for sharing!
This is gorgeous and looks delicious! You have some of my favorite things in there – I’m especially obsessed with Cara Cara oranges lately. My grls call them “pink oranges” 🙂
Rachel, I so wish we could go door to door for this progressive dinner! This salad had me at Hello. Wow. It all sounds so great and I love crunchy nuts in my salad and mix of sweet and savory.
This sounds so good and I love how pretty and colorful it is!!
I’ve never eaten a kumquat but you make me want to try it! What a pretty salad!
You’re totally making my mouth water over here, Rachel! That salad looks so yummy!
Hi Rachel,
Your table looks lovely and so like Spring time. Absolutely love the color pallet, so beautiful and checked out your berry salad, it looks really luscious and definitely want to try that dressing.
Thanks for posting all this eye candy.
Blessings, Nellie