This Cranberry Walnut and Spinach Salad in Honey Mustard Vinaigrette is full of crunchy walnuts, sweet cranberries and fresh spinach, tossed in a quick honey and Dijon mustard vinaigrette. It is the perfect way to get these colorful super-foods into your diet!
Cranberry Walnut and Spinach Salad in Honey Mustard Vinaigrette can be eaten as a prelude to the main dish, or as a healthy lunch during the busy work week. Or, even as a light dinner! The homemade salad is super easy to make, the hardest part is making sure your walnuts and spinach are fresh! Everything else is super easy.
Health Benefits of Cranberry Walnut Spinach Salad
This healthy spinach salad is a power source of vitamin A that supports immunity, lowers cholesterol and keeps your bones healthy thanks to all the spinach. Spinach is also a great source of vitamin K, folate, magnesium, iron, copper, calcium, potassium and vitamin C.
Walnuts provide a good supply of Omega-3 fatty acids, that support cardiovascular health and reduce inflammation in the body.
And cranberries are an excellent source of iodine – an important nutrient needed for your thyroid health. Cranberries as well as spinach are a very good source of dietary fiber. Great addition to your spinach salad!
This amazing salad is such a perfect winter treat, when we seem to overeat with all the holidays and parties and forget to eat all the fresh veggies that are out there too!
But you can enjoy the spinach salad in the summer months as well, when you don’t feel like using your oven. This healthy spinach salad is a good source of protein from walnuts that will keep you full and happy!
HOW TO MAKE HONEY MUSTARD HOMEMADE DRESSING
In this walnut and spinach salad we use 1/3 cup olive oil and 2 tbsp red wine vinegar. 1/3 cup equals 5 tablespoons and 1 teaspoon, so it’s slightly more on the vinegar side. If you prefer to go with less vinegar, start with 1 tablespoon, taste it and proceed to add more. Or add more oil.
Why make homemade salad dressing
Frequently we eat salads where we mix whatever we have handy in the kitchen at the moment and then just add bottled salad dressing. We seem to forget how easy it is to mix a great dressing with ingredients that you already keep in your pantry.
With just a little bit of planning you can always have the right dressing sitting in your fridge ready to be used, that’s not only very tasty, but is very healthy with no unnecessary additives that store bought dressings come with.
Why use Dijon Mustard in a salad dressing
Dijon mustard is such a great choice for many salad dressings. It’s tasty, creamy and easy to use.
It also serves as an emulsifier and binds all the other dressing ingredients together very well.
I seem to go through several jars of Dijon mustard in a span of only a couple of months. This Honey Mustard Vinaigrette is our “go to” dressing nowadays. It’s easy, healthy and never fails!
This Cranberry Walnut and Spinach Salad in Honey Mustard Vinaigretteis quick, easy and flavorful!
And if you like variety in your salads that add even more nutrients to your diet, you might also like these delicious and healthy salads:
Shredded Brussels Sprout Salad with Honey Mustard Vinaigrette
Olive Garden Copycat Salad
Honey Mustard Brussels Sprout Salad with Cranberries, Apples and Pecans
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Cranberry Walnut Spinach Salad in Honey Mustard Vinaigrette
Ingredients
- 5-7 oz bag/box baby spinach leaves (or 5 cups)
- 1/2 cup dried cranberries chopped
- 1/3 cup walnuts broken into pieces
Honey Mustard Vinaigrette
- 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
- 2 tbsp Dijon mustard
- 1 tbsp honey
- 1/3 cup olive oil (or 5-6 tbsp)
- ¼ tsp garlic powder
- ¼ tsp onion powder
- ¼ tsp sea salt
Instructions
- Arrange baby spinach leaves in the salad bowl (cut off ends if needed). Chop cranberries and add them to the bowl. Chop walnuts and add them to the bowl as well. Set aside
- Honey Mustard Vinaigrette: In a small bowl, first combine the vinegar and mustard, season with salt, garlic and onion powder. Now whisk in honey. Next slowly drizzle in the olive oil while whisking the ingredients together for about 1 minute. You will get thick creamy texture.
- Add cranberries and walnuts to the bowl with spinach. Drizzle in the Honey Mustard Vinaigrette from step 2 and mix well.
One of my favorite! And so healthy! I like to add a little fresh fruit or bacon broke into pieces! A few mozzarella balls or cut grapes! I make a meal out of it! It’s great by itself But I’m adventurest. love the dressing!
Patricia, I love that you added fresh fruit or bacon! I think it’s a very flexible salad:)
If planning to take to a family dinner 2 hours away, would it be better to make the dressing on site, or can it travel already prepared, but not yet mixed with the greens?
Definitely prepare it ahead of time. Packing it with an ice pack while will do – the dressing has vinegar in it, which is an effective natural preservative a stalls food spoilage. It might be cold enough where you are to not even need an ice pack.
Made this for with 5 ounce spinach bag – turned out perfect!!!
Yes, 5 ounces is plenty for this!
Love spinach and honey mustard dressing combination!
Glad you liked it. Honey mustard dressing on salads is amazing.