This salad combines sweet berries, with salty feta cheese and tangy dressing will have your taste buds singing. Serve it as a side dish at summer barbecues or add some cooked and diced chicken to make it a complete meal.
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I have a confession ... I am not a big salad eater.
Most of the time if I do eat one, it's more of an afterthought. Just something I toss together right before supper.
But, during the summer, I do love a good fresh salad. It keeps me from spending too much time over a hot stove and it cools me down with the weather is hot 🙂
I only serve this with my Creamy Poppy Seed Dressing but a simple balsamic vinaigrette would work well also.
What you'll need for this delicious Summer Salad:
Lettuce, spinach, or any other salad greens that you like. I like to use a combination of romaine and spinach!
Blueberries and strawberries are so delicious in this salad and they are both low carb fruit options. You can also try sliced peaches, apples, or raspberries!
Feta cheese is has a delicious creamy texture with a good amount of salt which helps to balance out the sweetness in this salad from the berries. You can swap the feta for crumbled goat cheese, blue cheese, or some shredded sharp white cheddar cheese,
Pecan halves add a great flavor and some serious crunch! You can also try using keto candied pecans for a little bit of extra sweetness!
Poppyseed Dressing is the traditional dressing for this type of salad but you can certainly substitute it with any dressing that you like, although I find that a lighter vinaigrette such as balsamic or raspberry works best.
Tips for making the best low carb salad:
Make sure that the berries and pecans are all bite-sized. I usually hull and quarter the strawberries but you may need to slice them even smaller depending upon their size.
The salad can be made up to a day in advance, but wait to add the dressing until just before serving. Also, be sure to store the salad in the fridge so that the lettuce and/or spinach stays nice and crisp.
Be sure to check out these other great low carb salad recipes:
- Greek Zoodle Salad
- Low Carb Pea Salad
- Mexican Street Corn Salad | Keto
- Easy Mason Jar Salads
- Sesame Peanut Cucumber Noodle Salad
- Healthy Cobb Salad from Low Carb Maven
- Low Carb Cheeseburger Salad from The Country Cook
- Low Carb Broccoli Salad with Bacon from Stay Snatched
📖 Recipe
Red, White and Blue Summer Salad
Ingredients
- 6 cups Lettuce rinsed and chopped
- ½ cup Blueberries washed
- ½ cup Strawberries sliced and chopped
- ⅓ cup Feta Cheese Crumbled
- ⅔ cup Pecan Halves roughly chopped
- ½ cup Sugar Free Poppyseed Dressing Optional
Instructions
- Place the chopped lettuce in the bottom of a large salad bowl. Top with the remaining ingredients.
Be sure to read the entire post for tips, tricks, and help troubleshooting.
The nutrition information listed here is only an estimate and is simply provided as a courtesy. It nor any other information within this post should constitute medical or nutritional advice. Be sure to read all packaging and ingredient labels for potential allergens. Optional ingredients are not included unless otherwise specified.
Nutrition
Summer Day says
This is a perfect hot summer day cool dinner, reminiscent of Panera Bread's Poppy seed Salad!! I can't eat spinach due to kidney stones, so we did make a few changes, which included using butterhead lettuce, white WINE vinegar, and only 3/4 c avocado oil in the dressing; and blue cheese instead of the feta and TOASTED pecans. 1 small chopped avocado tossed in lightly at the end helped bring my fat macro up where I needed it. I took 1 large chicken breast rubbed with 1/4 tsp avocado oil and about 3/4tsp McCormick Montreal Chicken Rub-let that sit while the air fryer warmed up to 380 and cooked it 6 min on each side. The thick area needed 2min longer. I served the chicken sliced on top of the salad. It was moist, warm and juicy when I served the salad with a slice of French Baguette for the bread lovers. I started the prep by warming the air fryer. By the time the chicken was done, I had the salad all put together and the dressing ready (using my Bullet) to toss in at the last minute. 20 minutes tops. The dressing recipe made enough to use on a repeat of this meal for tomorrow. Tonight we got 3 large dinner plate size servings as a main dish salad. Everyone loved it! Thanks for sharing this!!