Spinach salad with peanut dressing brings the flavors and textures you love in one big lunch!
I know it seems weird for me to be pumping out another salad so soon… But this one also has a good inspiration! Me and my mother-in-love went to a chopped salad restaurant recently. And I had one of their signature salads that was served with cold poached salmon and an Asian dressing. I set out to create a salad similar to that one so that I could re-create it for my own lunches, and when testing it turned into so much more!
When J tried the salad, he said, “Wow, this salad dressing is good. Does it have peanut butter in it?” And I thought, “That’s weird.” Because it didn’t. Then I thought… why not add to that flavor and go ahead and use peanut butter in this dressing? The salad has turned into everything that’s good about chicken satay in a salad form! You really can’t go wrong with sliced toasted almonds on a salad, almost ever. They’re really versatile.
This dressing comes together with things I generally have already laying around, but I did use an immersion blender to get the job done. Here is the one that I have (affiliate). It comes with a cup that has high sides and is the width perfect for the blender blade, so that liquid doesn’t spill out. I just use that, and then it even had a spout and was ready to pour!
Local Spotlight: It’s Malabar spinach time at the farmers market! This is gorgeous, big, leafy spinach and was perfect for this. And if I never have to buy honey again, it will be too soon. We have recently been gifted lots of local honey. No complaints over here! We use it for a lot of things!
Do you like sweet salad like the one posted a few weeks ago here? Or are you more of a savory type of salad eater?
xxHillary

Spinach Salad with Peanut Dressing [mDF, GF, V]
Ingredients
- 6 T. olive oil
- 2 T. low-sodium soy sauce
- 2 cloves garlic chopped
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1 T. ginger minced
- 2 t. sesame oil
- 4 T. rice vinegar
- 1 T. peanut butter
- 4 servings spinach
- 1/4 red onion
- 1/4 C. sliced almonds toasted
- 1/4 C. feta cheese
- 1/4 C. green onions optional
Instructions
- Toast almonds in a dry skillet on medium heat until brown, stirring constantly.
- Very thinly slice red onion into strips and scallions, if desired.
- With an immersion blender, combine oil, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, honey, sesame oil and vinegar together until smooth and emulsified.
- Each serving of salad will use about 3-4 T. of dressing.
- Serve with feta cheese, almonds, and onions.
- #enJOY!
Recipe Notes
Can be modified to be dairy free if cheese is removed.
In your instructions, you neglected to mention the peanut butter. I assume it is to be blended with the olive and sesame oils, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, honey, and vinegar? This sounds like a very strange combination. I was at the refridgerator and seen a large box of baby spinach setting next to some peanut butter that was refridgerated since it was starting to seperate inro paste and oil. So I looked it up on Google more as a joke to see if anyone else had thought of this combination. Now i have to try it. But i don’t do soy sauce so I’m using coconut amines, and probably liquid coconut oil for the MCT’s.along with sesame oil. Also I don’t have rice vinegar so I’m using cider vinegar with mother or red wine vinegar. Do you add salt and pepper?
Hi! I think all your subs will work beautifully. And yes, sorry, they should all be blended with the peanut butter! But salt and pepper Would be a great addition if needed!