Nectarine Poppy Seed Salad
A lightened up poppy seed dressing tossed with mixed greens, sliced nectarines, goat cheese, red onion, and pistachios! This Nectarine Poppy Seed Salad is a fresh and healthy side salad!
I got my vegetable garden planted last week with lots of greens which means one thing - bring on the salad recipes! I had such great success with my lettuce last year (my beans and carrots, not so much) and I absolutely loved having green salads with dinner every night.
Salads with poppy seed dressings are some of my favorites, especially this time of year when berries and stone fruit are in season - I love the combination of sweet and salty in my salads! The bummer about a lot of poppy seed dressings, homemade and store bought, is that they're loaded with mayo and sugar. This kind of defeats the purpose of eating a veggie and fruit filled salad, doesn't it?
So, I set out to make mine healthier! I based it off a recipe from The Cookful and modified it to have more yogurt and less mayo (Stonyfield Whole Milk Plain Yogurt FTW!) and less sugar (just a couple of tablespoons), and it was just as creamy and perfectly sweetened.
Along with the spring greens and poppy seed dressing, I sliced up a nectarine (peaches would be delicious, too!) and a red onion, crumbled up some goat cheese, and threw on some salted pistachios. It was sweet, salty, crunchy, creamy deliciousness!
Ingredients
For the Poppy Seed Dressing:
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- ¾ cup plain whole milk yogurt or plain greek yogurt would work too, just add a couple tablespoons of water because it will be thicker
- ¼ cup mayonnaise
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- juice from 1 lemon
- 1 tablespoon poppy seeds
- ½ teaspoon salt
- dash of pepper
For the salad:
- 5-6 cups mixed greens
- 1 nectarine sliced
- ½ cup crumbled goat cheese
- ¼ red onion thinly sliced
- ¼ cup chopped pistachios or walnuts
Instructions
- In a mason jar or medium bowl, combine dressing ingredients.
- If using a mason jar, place the lid on and shake vigorously until all ingredients are combined. If using a bowl, use a whisk to combine ingredients.
- Combine all salad ingredients and then drizzle with about half of the dressing. Toss and then add more dressing if you like.
- Serve and enjoy!
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Disclosure: I was compensated for this post as part of Stonyfield's Clean Plate Club. As always, all opinions, recipe, and text are my own.
