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This spring mix salad is a fast and easy recipe starring a mix of baby greens! Top with veggies and a zingy homemade salad dressing.
If you’re looking for an easy salad recipe, try my favorite spring mix salad! Grab a box or bag of spring mix at the store, and you barely need to think to make this salad recipe. I’ve customized this recipe to be simple with items you might already have on hand!
Whisk up a quick homemade salad dressing, like a light and tangy vinaigrette, and it compliments the delicate leaves perfectly. You’ll go from zero to salad in no time! My whole family loves this one.
What Is Spring Mix?
Spring mix is a mix of baby greens that’s sold packaged at many grocery stores. The mix general contains baby greens, which are harvested before they reach maturity. This gives them a mild and delicate flavor: perfect for salads! Every brand of spring mix has different greens, but varieties you might find in most mixes include:
- Baby lettuce
- Baby spinach
- Red or green romaine lettuce
- Red or green oak leaf lettuce
- Baby chard or arugula
- Baby endive or radicchio
Ingredients You’ll Need
You can pair just about anything with spring mix. But for this spring mix salad, I wanted it to be incredibly simple with ingredients you might already have on hand. Here’s what you’ll need:
- Spring mix: I like to pair store-bought spring mix with another green like romaine to round out the flavors and textures. See below for more!
- Onion or shallot: Use shallot for a delicate flavor, or red onion for a more bold choice! To round out the spicy flavor, you can soak it in cold water while you prepare the rest of the salad.
- Carrot: Carrots are stable for weeks, and they’re great in salads. Peel them into long ribbons for an interesting texture!
- Feta cheese: Salty cheese takes a salad from blah to irresistible! Substitute goat cheese or Parmesan shavings.
- Chopped nuts: Use whatever you have on hand: good choices are pecans, walnuts, pistachios or almonds
- Sliced apple (optional): Add a pop of sweet with a sliced or diced apple!
Tips for The Perfect Spring Mix Salad
Some people don’t love pre-made spring mix for salads, but it’s nice for a quick and easy salad! Here are some pros and cons to this packaged salad mix:
- Store-bought spring mix is convenient for a quick side dish. There’s nothing faster than this boxed mix, and it usually comes pre-washed. Score!
- However, the flavor is variable, the leaves can be flimsy, and it can become slimy quickly. Sometimes the combination of baby greens can be on the bitter side. The leaves can be flimsy, instead of giving a nice hearty crunch like romaine. Ever bought a box or bag of spring mix and it’s slimy before you get to eating it? Because the leaves are young and detached from the plant, they’re more delicate and easy to bruise.
- To combat this, use the spring mix as soon as possible after buying it, and add other greens for texture. You can combine it with other hearty greens like romaine to get a nice mix of textures and flavors.
Best Dressings For Spring Mix Salad
A spring mix doesn’t hold up to every dressing: try something heavy and creamy like ranch and it gets completely smothered! Here are some of the top homemade dressing recipes we’d pair with this to make a standout salad:
- Best Balsamic Vinaigrette is one of the best salad dressings you’ll make: classic, tangy, and easy
- Orange Vinaigrette Salad Dressing brings a citrus burst to any salad
- Dijon Mustard Dressing is creamy and perfectly balanced
- Ginger Dressing is ultra zingy, with spicy pop from the ginger
- Poppy Seed Dressing is tangy sweet and studded with seeds
Serving Suggestions
This spring mix salad goes well with main dishes of all kinds. I love it as a simple side paired with Smash Burger Chicken Tacos or Easy Air Fryer Chicken Nuggets, alongside Mediterranean Pasta with Artichokes, or with Falafel Burgers or Chicken Burgers.
Storage Information
This spring mix salad does not hold up well in the fridge, especially after the dressing is added. If you’d like to make it ahead, store all components separately and add dressing right before serving.
Dietary Notes
This spring mix salad recipe is vegetarian and gluten-free. For vegan, plant-based and dairy-free, omit the feta cheese.
Spring Mix Salad
This spring mix salad is a fast and easy recipe starring a mix of baby greens! Top with veggies and a zingy homemade salad dressing.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 0 minutes
- Total Time: 15 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
- Category: Salad
- Method: Raw
- Cuisine: Salad
- Diet: Vegetarian
Ingredients
- 8 cups spring mix salad greens
- 1 large carrot
- 1/4 small red onion or 1 shallot
- ¼ cup feta cheese crumbles (or goat cheese crumbles; optional)
- ¼ cup chopped pecans, walnuts, almonds or pistachios
- 1 apple, sliced or diced (optional)
- Balsamic Vinaigrette, Dijon Dressing, Orange Vinaigrette, Ginger Dressing, or Poppy Seed Dressing
Instructions
- Make the dressing: Try Balsamic Vinaigrette, Dijon Dressing, Orange Vinaigrette, or Poppy Seed Dressing.
- Prepare the vegetables: Slice the onion and if desired, soak it in cold water while preparing the rest of the salad (to remove the bite). Or, slice the shallot into rings. Peel the carrot into ribbons or julienne it. Chop the nuts.
- Serve: Place the spring mix greens on a platter or salad plate, and top with carrots, onion, feta crumbles, and chopped nuts. Drizzle with dressing and serve (use about 1 to 1 ½ tablespoons dressing per serving).
More Easy Salad Recipes to Try
Sometimes salads can take quite a while to prepare: so we love recipes that are quick and simple! Here are some more easy salad recipes:
I realize this is probably a dumb question, but this was the first time I ever used a recipe for a green salad, so bear with me. :) How do you properly measure spring mix lettuce in cups – drop it loosely into the cup, or cram in as much as possible (which I was nervous about because spring mix is delicate). So I decided to just “eyeball” it. I made this for a potluck dinner and everyone seemed to really like it, so apparently it was close enough! But for future reference, I’d like to know how to properly measure lettuce by volume. It was delicious and I definitely want to make it again! Thanks.
It’s really a rough guess :) We loosely pack when measuring.
Let us know if you have any questions!