Everyone Makes Strawberry Salad Wrong (Until Now)

What’s your go-to summer recipe?☀️

It’s the end of summer and we’re celebrating with the freshest, most addictive salad you’ll ever make! 🍓🌿 This Strawberry Arugula Salad has it all—sweet strawberries, peppery wild arugula, tangy goat cheese, and my secret weapon: spicy candied almonds (made in minutes, right in a pan).
I’ll walk you through how to make the vinaigrette from scratch, candy the almonds without any fuss, and toss everything together for a salad that’s equal parts sweet, spicy, tangy, and crunchy. It’s the perfect dish for BBQs, cookouts, or just a light dinner at home. Easy, fast, and packed with flavor—bingo, bango, bongo—you’ve got yourself a salad!

If you’re looking for an easy summer recipe that feels fancy but takes almost no effort, this is it.

👉 Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and hit the bell for more easy recipes packed with flavor!

#SaladRecipe #StrawberrySalad #EasyRecipes #SummerSalad

End of the summer strawberry salad. Strawberries, wild arugula, shaved red onion. Make the vinegarette right there. I do some candied spicy almond. Show you how to do that right in a pan. A little goat cheese in here. Easy. Bingo. Bongo. Bango. Got yourself your salad. There’s a ton of Tik Tok videos of people like putting baking soda in with strawberries and the worms coming out. Those are fake, by the way. That that’s really not the case. There’s three ways of cleaning your berries or your strawberries. So, you can use cider vinegar, which actually I don’t think is a bad way to do it. You can do baking soda, which once again changes the pH, pulls some of the dirt out, cleans it a little bit, or you can just do hot water. And I know that that sounds counterintuitive to put hot water on berries. You think it degrades it. It actually doesn’t. If you do hot water quickly on a blast rinse, it actually gets most of the dirt off, even more so than if you were doing it with the baking soda or the vinegar. I want to go with the vinegar on this one. The water and the vinegar. I’ve got hot water, so I’m kind of combining two techniques. And I’m going to use rice vinegar, right? And the reason I’m doing that is that I actually want the flavor of the rice vinegar in the strawberries because this is going to be a sweet and acidic salad. The strawberries are sweet. We want acidity in the salad, peppery nature of the arugula, and the wholesome richness from the goat cheese as well as the spicy almonds. So, I’m just going to dump these strawberries right in there. Okay, let’s get them going. And I’m just going to let them soak. Right. Like, so you can kind of see it’s already starting to get some of that dirt off. Now, these have already been rinsed, but you know, still you want to take it another step. Make sure that there’s no parasites in here. Lay a paper towel down here. Dry these guys off. I’m going to build the salad right into the bowl. We’re going to use the juice from the strawberries to make the vinegrett. That’s the key here. Okay, so let’s get going. I’m going to do these in half. I want big fat chunks of strawberry. These are smaller strawberries. So, I’m just going to havs these on these guys. There we go. Now, what I’m going to do is I’m going to get the the strawberries marinating. So, I’m going to hit this with just a little bit of salt. Okay. I’m going to hit it with a little bit of lemon juice. I’m going to do a little bit of honey in here. Okay. Almost merating these berries. And I’m going to let that sit for about 5 to 10 minutes. Okay. Now, while my strawberries are marinating and essentially merating, they’re going to start to release some moisture. I’m going to take my almonds, my raw almonds. Now, you can do cashews, pine nuts, walnuts, any nut. Any nut will do. I used to name nuts, right? Mama used to say, “Quit naming nuts.” Just kidding. See if you know that movie. So, this is almost a recipe within a recipe. I’m going to make more nuts than we actually need. And I’m doing almost like a bacon infused, smoky, spicy, sweet, toasted almond. So, I’ve got a carbon steel pan right here. And I’m actually going to start with bacon fat. So, I’m going to put a bunch of bacon fat directly into the pan. And then I’m going to toast I’m going to start by toasting Oh yeah, it’s all bacony. I’m going to toast my almonds in the bacon fat. Now, for everybody who’s like, “Oh my gosh, Andrew, you’re making another salad. I want meat.” Well, you’re getting some bacon in these almonds. So, we’re going to be peppering the meat in there, pun intended, through different ingredients. Okay. So, just get these completely tossed up and toast these almonds all around in the bacon fat. The thing, the reason why I like doing it on the stove top is because you want to keep stirring it so it doesn’t burn. You want to make sure it cooks evenly. If you do it in the oven, you have to keep opening the oven door, stirring it, closing it, open, stir, close, open, stir, close, open, stir, close. I’ve got raw almonds right here. So, don’t start with toasted almonds. Make sure you’ve got raw, unsalted almonds. This works really well with cashews, too. Cashews are great. Cashews are also very healthy for you. I should probably eat more cashew. I think there’s a good amount of zinc in there. Cashews fulfill a vitamin deficiency that many Americans have in their diets, but nuts in general are good. These nuts are the best. See that? See, you’re getting the flavor. That’s what you want. You want a little toast on the exterior. We’re just bringing the flavors out. Bringing the flavors out on this. Okay. So, now what I’m going to do, this is where you can have fun. You can add your own spice mix to this, but now you want to dry toast the spices onto the almonds. The almonds are going to have an adhesive to them cuz they’re all covered in the bacon fat. So, I’m going to start with a little bit of smoked paprika. I’m just going to add a dash of smoke smoked paprika on here. Okay. You can add some chili powder if you want. Do a little bit of cinnamon on there. Right. I think the cinnamon adds a nice touch, especially knowing this is going to be in a salad with strawberries. Just a dash of coriander. Coriander is pretty fruity. I like coriander. It’s actually just the ground seed of cilantro, but it’s less in your face. and a little bit of this umami blend, which is more the mushroom spice. Now we’re getting that nice toast on there. Oh yeah. So now it’s aromatic. So I’m going to turn this down. Okay. I’m going to hit this with salt now as well. Okay. Let’s get these nice and salty. Let’s get our nuts salty. And this is the part where we’re going to have some fun. We’re going to add a little bit of honey to this. Now you can do brown sugar, you can do white sugar, you can do agave. I mean, whatever your your favorite sweetener is. And then we’re just going to continue toasting this with the honey. So, this has like a nice smoky, somewhat spicy, salty, rich from the bacon fat and sweet finish. And I’m going to continue toasting these. Wait for it to get a nice color on there. See, these are starting to get brown. And that’s it, right? Like that’s it. Now, I turn the heat off. Uh, lay these out on like a sheet pan. Where is my sheet pan? Oh my gosh, there’s a cat in here. Ah, there we go. I wanted the red one. Okay, so look. So now I’m just going to lay these out and let them cool. In the time that we were toasting the nuts, these nuts, I was merating the strawberries. And what mering is is when you add like the sugar and you kind of let some of the juices u you extract the juices from the berry, some of the sweetness, some of the sugars, and it creates this beautiful juice. Um, if you look right here, there it is. Right? Like that’s flavor country right there. But I want to give this a try. Oh, so that’s salty and sweet and a and it’s actually got a little bit of acid in there from when we soaked the berries in the original vinegar. So now I’m going to use this as the base for my vinegarette. Now an interesting tip or trick. I’ll add more vinegar in here. Okay, and you’re probably thinking to yourself like, “Wo, that’s a lot of vinegar.” Right now in the bowl, I’ve got all my strawberry juices mixed in with a little bit of lemon juice, vinegar, salt. This is going to be the foundation of the vinegrett as I mentioned. Right? So that’s essentially a strawberry a sweet and salty strawberry vinegar right there that I’ve made just right in this right in this bowl in the past five minutes. I’ve got my lettuce greens right here. Now if you think about it, okay, let’s do a little food science. What’s inside these lettuce greens? Moisture, right? It’s porous and there’s water in there. So, if I took these lettuce greens right now and I mix it with a vinegarette, which is three parts oil to one part vinegar, the oil is going to run off of the lettuce greens and the vinegar is going to kind of penetrate it a little bit because water to water, like to like. Ultimately, the fat from the olive oil or whatever oil you’re using is just going to coat these lettuce greens and that coating gets mutes or gets rid of some of the flavor. The fat is flavoring the salad and it’s a vehicle through which you can introduce other flavors. But ultimately, you don’t want the fat overpowering the natural sweet delicate flavor of the lettuce greens. So, anytime you’re making any salad, the first thing you want to do is you actually want to toss your lettuce greens and the salad ingredients first with the vinegar very very lightly so that each leaf or each element of the salad gets lightly tossed in that vinegar. Then you finish it with the extravirgin olive oil or whatever fat you’re using because then that rounds it out. So that’s kind of the technique there. So I’m going to toss this with some of this strawberry vinegar. Now I’m going to do it around the bowl first, right? And the same goes for the salt. When you’re salting your salad, you want to make sure that you salt it before you hit it with your dressing, okay? Because then the salt’s going to actually get in there. So now I’m going to just toss the lettuce or the arugula in this case, the baby wild arugula with that vinegarette. Okay. So now it’s soaking into these greens and giving the salad that flavor because how often you get a salad where it’s either like too acidic or it’s just full of oil. You don’t want an oily salad. So this is the way in which you prevent that from happening. Okay. So now I’m just going to let that sit. And you do it like really right before you serve it. And that’s how you can make your dressing right in the bowl. But I want to do a little bit of red onion in here. Maybe just do like this much of the onion. Right. Slice this very, very thin. Back cutting is how you get it thin. See how I’m back cutting on there. Right. Getting it paper thin. We’re not going to hit it with the olive oil until the very very end cuz that’s just what’s going to round out the flavors. So, we’ll get that red onion in there. All right. Now, I’ve got these uh these nuts that are still a little bit hot. I don’t want to throw them in while they’re still hot. What I am going to do is I’m going to take this and I’m going to give this I’m going to give this a rough chop because you don’t want a whole fat almond in your salad. You want some of the almond dust, right? Because we want that to evenly disperse throughout the salad. And just as much as you want. I mean, there’s really no proportion to these ingredients. I like a lot of interior garnish in my salad. So, I’m going to make sure that we got a heavy amount of these nuts. Okay, these nuts. I’m going to toss the red onion up with the salad greens. And this is going to be a really simple salad. I’m not going to add uh tomato to this because there’s something about the idea of tomato and strawberries that’s disgusting to me. But that’s just me. So now I’m going to mix this in. And this is richness, right? This tangy, rich goat cheese. This is I think goat cheese is underutilized in American cuisine. Goat cheese isn’t just delicious, but it’s also very good for you. And for those who are lactose intolerant, it’s much easier in the digestive track. Uh just goat cheese overall. I think everybody should have a have a goat. You know, the kids have been asking for a pet. They’ve been asking for a dog, but we’re Lauren and I have been secretly searching online for a goat, and I think we’re going to probably buy a goat. Now, I’m going to add my nuts into the salad. Give this a light toss. Once again, let some of that goat cheese kind of like feather into and emulsify into the greens. All right, so the last thing I’m going to add is I’ve got some Italian flat leaf parsley. I like that peppery, somewhat citrusy, herbal taste of the Italian flat leaf parsley. I’ve got some chives that I’m going to slice up in here and add into the salad. So, this is really just like a nice herb wild arugula salad with the toasted almonds, strawberries. All right. Now, I’m not going to add I’m just going to add a handful of the strawberries in here. I don’t want them to weigh the salad down. And then I’m going to finish with some of the strawberries on top. Okay. Give it a taste. Oh, yeah. There we go. Go ahead and add this into our bowl. This is going to be Lauren’s dinner tonight. Finished with strawberries around the outside. I’m going to add just a little bit more of the goat cheese on at the end. And then I’ll probably chop up just another touch of these almonds. Get that right on top there. You can hit it with just a dash of some more of some Parmesan cheese or any other cheese. And since we’ve got the fattiness in the salad and we’ve already added the vinegar to the greens, now I’m just going to finish it with some extra virgin olive oil as opposed to making that directly into the dressing. So, this is a simple end of the summer salad. I’ve got marinated strawberries, some sweet and spicy salty toasted almonds in there, goat cheese, thinly sliced onions. Showing you how to make a proper vinegaret into the salad. And there you have it. [Music]