Strawberry and Sweet Pea Salad

Strawberry and Sweet Pea Salad

May 31, 2018

Servings: 4

Prep: 5 min

Cook: 5 min

Total: 10 min

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The ultimate 10-minute salad, that doesn't look like it took close to 10 minutes! The perfect way to indulge in strawberry season and share it with the ones you love!

By: A Wholesome New World

Ingredients

• 1 quart of (organic) strawberries, each sliced into quarters
• 1 cup fresh English peas
• 3-4 cups fresh spring greens, washed
• 1/3 cup feta cheese (my brand of choice, Trader Joe's Mediterranean Herbs)
• A dozen or so fresh basil leaves
• 1-2 TBSP balsamic glaze (also love Trader Joe's brand - it's a staple in my fridge!)

Directions

• Step 1 Place peas in a steamer basket over a small saucepan, filled with about 1 cup of water. Bring water to a boil and cook peas for 3-4 minutes until soft, but not mushy. Run under cold water to stop the cooking process.
• Step 2 To assemble your salads, first lay the greens. Layer with sliced strawberries and sprinkle with the peas. Divide feta cheese among the plates and garnish each salad with fresh basil.
• Step 3 Season each salad with a healthy dash of sea salt and drizzle with balsamic glaze immediately before serving.

I’m going to come right out and say it, sometimes the best recipes also happen to be the easiest ones. Not all chefs may agree with this outlook, but I think there’s a lot of pride in being able to develop a dish that is, in the same breath, both impressive and simple. Our lives are busy and hectic (and only getting more so!) and as much as I do find cooking a reprieve from all the craziness, I don’t always have the time I’d like to devote to it. There are never enough hours in the day and there are a fair share of nights when dinner just has to get on the table and tummies have to be filled. And this salad is the answer to all of that and more, because it also manages to look and taste like a 4 star dish.

I wish I had a better story to weave for the inspiration of this recipe, but it mainly just comes down to sourcing seasonal ingredients – it is the height of strawberry season, so they were the natural star of this plate. The rest of this just came together on the fly: sweet peas – to give the plate some texture, savory feta cheese -to contrast the sweetness of the berries, basil – for added depth, and balsamic glaze – because I was inspired!  I personally couldn’t keep myself from going one step further and decided to make a whole strawberry theme out of our dinner. I served this as a preamble to our Strawberry BBQ Chicken Thighs and we even topped up off the night with ice cream sundaes dressed in strawberry coulis (recipes coming soon!).

This salad is easy pea-sy (see what I did there?!) to whip up for a weeknight side, but also great for entertaining, especially in the spring/summer months.  It all came together quite naturally, but this is recipe you can definitely add your own spin to.  In fact, I recommend that you do that with most, if not all, the recipes we post.  You have every right to make it your own and you never know what journey a recipe will take you on, that’s half the joy of cooking!