A Simple Spinach Salad with an easy homemade vinaigrette dressing, toppings, and baby spinach. Use it as a side dish, or load up the proteins for a delicious summer lunch.
There are many fresh spinach salad recipes, but this easy recipe has a lot going for it, with the base being tender baby spinach, a simple homemade vinaigrette dressing made with ketchup, and loads of delicious toppings of your choice.
Our variation has bacon, hard-boiled eggs, and a touch of China with bean sprouts and water chestnuts. A classic summer salad that will earn a place on your summer menu. But we commonly use it for holiday meals or gatherings with family or friends, like picnics or potluck parties.
Serve it will grilled meals like Grilled Whole Chicken or Grilled Chicken Thighs. Or with a great steak like Grilled Porterhouse Steak or Seared and Baked Strip Steak.
This recipe post was a rescue mission. This was the only copy of a long-time family favorite and had to be saved and published for the world to see.
Don't miss these other favorite summer recipes, like Fresh Strawberry Pie, Corn on the Cob, Healthy Lemonade, and Mango Salsa with Pineapple.
🥣Ingredients
- Baby Spinach—fresh, cleaned well
- Eggs—hard boiled
- Bacon
- Bean sprouts
- Water chestnut
- Onion—red
- Mushrooms—fresh, sliced, optional
Spinach Salad Dressing
- Ketchup
- Sugar
- Olive oil
- Worcestershire sauce
- Vinegar—red or other vinegar
- Salt—kosher
👨🍳How to Make This Simple Spinach Salad
- Mix spinach salad dressing along with wash, trim, and dry spinach.
- Prepare any toppings, like chopping the red onion, cooking bacon, draining cans of bean sprouts, and water chestnuts. Slice hard boil eggs.
- Add all non-dressing ingredients to a large bowl and toss to combine.
- Serve with the dressing on the side and drizzle with the dressing.
- Store leftovers sealed well in the refrigerator but store the dressing in a separate container.
✔️Optional ingredients and variations
This is a salad, so there are no strict rules. Here are some ideas to get you started.
Fruits: Strawberry, apples, blueberries, raspberries, dried cherries, or cranberries
Vegetables: Other lettuce, cucumber, red peppers, sliced mushrooms
Nuts: almonds, pecans, walnuts
Proteins: grilled chicken, shrimp, feta cheese, goat cheese, Parmesan cheese, or blue cheese
🥬How to buy the best fresh spinach
So, how to pick out the best fresh spinach?
- You want dark green leaves with crisp texture and aroma.
- You prefer young baby spinach that will have thin stems.
- Buy freshly picked if possible but avoid bunches with wilted, slimy, or discolored leaves.
- If you are buying bagged, look at the buy-by date and look at it the best you can.
- Don’t overbuy. While you can store it for up to 10 days, it is better consumed in 3-4 days, so buy right and buy late.
❓FAQs
Fresh spinach will store well sealed, dry, and cold for up to 10 days in the refrigerator's crisper drawer wrapped in paper towels. Wash only the spinach you are using now. Moisture is the enemy of freshness.
A vinaigrette is usually a combination of oil and vinegar. A standard ratio is 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar, which this dressing approximates.
The vinegar part is usually apple cider vinegar, red wine vinegar, or balsamic vinegar. The tomato in the ketchup adds a bit of acid here, also.
The oil can be almost any oil, but we generally use extra virgin olive oil.
Baby spinach is bite size, tender, and sweet with the right amount of crunch when fresh. Older spinach is bigger and tougher.
❄️How to store leftover spinach salad
Start with how you serve the salad—instead of tossing the salad with the dressing, serve the dressing on the side. The salad will store much better without the salad dressing coating the other ingredients.
Seal the salad in an airtight container in the refrigerator. It is delicious in 1 day, OK at two days, and by day three should be consumed or destroyed. The salad dressing will be good refrigerated and airtight for a week.
This is not a good dish to freeze. Most components will lose texture.
Food safety
- Wash hands and surfaces before starting.
- Properly rinse and clean fresh vegetables.
- Don't leave food sitting out for over 2 hours if the environmental temperature is under 90° or 1 hour if over 90°F. If over these time limits, it should be discarded.
- Do not use the same utensils that previously touched raw meat without proper cleaning to prevent cross-contamination.
See Summer Food Safety for more safety tips.
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Have you tried this recipe, or have a question? Join the community discussion in the comments.
Step-by-Step Photo Instructions
Combine all dressing components in a shaker, small jar, or bowl and shake or whisk to mix well.
Wash, trim, and dry spinach. Prepare any toppings, like chopping the red onion, cooking bacon, draining cans of bean sprouts, and water chestnuts. Slice hard boil eggs.
In a large bowl, combine all non-dressing ingredients and toss well.
Serve with dressing on the side to drizzle when serving.
📖 Recipe
Simple Spinach Salad
Ingredients
- 1 lb baby spinach - cleaned and dried
Our favorite toppings—many more in the recipe post
- 4 hard-boiled eggs
- 3-4 strips bacon - chopped, fried, and drained
- 14 oz bean sprouts - drained
- 8 oz sliced water chestnuts - drained
- 1 medium chopped red onion - optional
- ½ cup sliced fresh mushrooms - optional
Spinach Salad Dressing
- ⅓ cup ketchup
- ½ cup sugar
- ¾ cup olive oil - or other vegetable oil
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 3 tablespoons red vinegar - or other vinegar
- ½ to 1 teaspoon kosher salt
Instructions
- Combine all dressing components in a shaker, small jar, or bowl and shake or whisk to mix well.
- Wash, trim, and dry spinach. Prepare any toppings, like chopping the red onion, cooking bacon, draining cans of bean sprouts, and water chestnuts. Slice hard boil eggs.
- In a large bowl, combine all non-dressing ingredients and toss well.
- Serve with dressing on the side to drizzle when serving.
Your Own Private Notes
Recipe Notes
Pro Tips
- Pick out fresh baby spinach with good dark color and thin stems.
- The water chestnuts and bean sprouts are the limiting factors in the size of this recipe. You can cut the size if you don't mind wasting the extra.
- Many other toppings are suggested in the recipe post.
- Serve the dressing on the side since this salad will store better without the dressing.
- Refrigerate leftovers sealed for up to 3 days, but the third day is not the best.
- The dressing has lots of taste from Worcestershire sauce and ketchup, so it can tolerate using different vinegar or oil if you want.
To adjust the recipe size:
You may adjust the number of servings in this recipe card under servings. This does the math for the ingredients for you. BUT it does NOT adjust the text of the instructions. So you need to do that yourself.
Nutrition Estimate
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Editor note: This is a republish of a recipe originally published on May 24, 2010. That was the first year of the blog, and I just took a few pictures and tossed up the recipe so my kids would stop calling mom for it. Updated with expanded options, refreshed photos, and a table of contents to help navigation.
Deborah Lein
Dr. Dan, I have Swiss Chard in the garden which I usually cook / wilt to use with pastas. I find it pretty tough to eat without a little cooking. Can Swiss Chard be substituted for fresh spinach?
Dan Mikesell AKA DrDan
Hi Deborah,
The spinach is soft, tender, and a bit sweet if you get nice baby spinach. Not at all like the chard I have had so I would not substitute for it.
Dan
Leslie
Since I cook for one, my slow cooker is only a 1 quart size. However, I think it runs a lot hotter than the larger cookers, 2 qt.+, and it's difficult to time recipes correctly. Is this generally true of all small slow cookers or does mine need to be replaced?
Dan Mikesell AKA DrDan
Hi Leslie,
I have a hard time recommending the very small crockpots. The last time I looked at them, none had thermostats but used reostats. The longer the were turned on, the higher the temp. And high is way uncontrollable.
Cuisinart generally wins reviews of small crockpots and Kitchaid usually wins full-size reviews. But honest reviews that are not just click-bate to sell a product are hard to find anymore. Mostly behind a paywall at Cooks Illustrated.
So I would look at 3-4 quart Kitchenaid or Cuisinart. More expensive is the All-clad. I have had their pots for years with good results but they are generally not included in the roundups due to price.
Remember when you are shopping, You want a timmer, digital control. You will have it for yeqrs so don't skimp too much.
Dan
Leslie
Thanks so much for the advice on small slow cookers but due to your answer, I have another question...I’ve read that slow cookers must be at least half full to operate as the manufacturer intended. If this is true, it doesn’t make sense for me to even use this cooking method for small amounts. And please don’t suggest I freeze leftovers...I have a freezer full now and I’m not crazy about them. I find cooking for one difficult when preparing soups, stews, casseroles, etc.
Dan Mikesell AKA DrDan
The 50% has been around some but is wrong. The best results are between 25% and 66%. I stretch that some and will go up to 75% on the high end. On the low end, underfilled will cook faster but still can be used. Decide on the endpoint of your cooking (say chicken at 165 degrees or tender potatoes) and check a few times like at half and 3/4 time. Also, if underfilled, don't use high.
Dan
Kathleen
Dr. Dan, you are my " go to guy" for alot of my meals. The pork tenderloin with potatoes and carrots, the crock pot ribs, baked chicken thighs - - delicious! And my husband agrees! Thank you!
Pat Thompson
I've been making this for decades. Originally saw the recipe as a winner of a contest. It was called Sedona Spinach Salad. It is delicious.
anne
I love seeing the old recipe card
Going to make this tomorrow, Looks yummy !
You always have the best recipes
I look forward to your posting them
Thank you Dr. Dan
DrDan
Hi Anne,
I think the card is classic. You can't even read part of it due to the food stains. I still have it but now I look on the blog when I need it.
Thanks for the note
Dan
Joan
I used to make this or a version of it some years ago. I liked the flavors, but disliked chewing the spinach leaves which, to me, have an odd texture. I wonder how the salad would do with romaine lettuce instead of the spinach?
DrDan
Hi Joan,
Try "baby" spinach. The smaller the leaves, the more tender. You can try it with romaine. Most of the flavor does come from the other ingredients.
Thanks for the note
Dan
adriana
Quick ?, for the dressing it asks for vinegar... is it apple cider vinegar, white wine vinegar or regular distilled vinegar?
Thank you,
Adriana
DrDan
I like apple cider but white will do. By regular distilled I believe is the same thing as white.
DrDan
Martha (MM)
Yummy! Sounds totally delicious! Thanks so much for linking this up at this month's salad round up! It's still open if you have others :-)
Christine
No, no. He meant the only copy on a card. I pulled it out of the recipe box and the thing felt like it was going to fall apart in my hands!
Greg
It wasn't the only copy, I had mom e-mail that to me years ago and I still have it printed out in my kitchen. But yes rescue missions are good here.