Spring Salad, served with Rosé Vinaigrette

This spring salad is adorned with asparagus, grapefruit, crumbled feta, and creamy avocado. It’s topped with a flavorful rosé vinaigrette, making it reliable for brunch or a light summer meal!

We put rosé wine in salad dressing. And we fully stand behind this decision. And you should do the same. As we write this post, we may or may not be drinking a glass of the leftover rosé.

When we started brainstorming recipe ideas, we thought it would be fun to create a spring salad with tons of fresh, bright flavors. We don’t know about the rest of the country, but Michigan is READY FOR SPRING. Honestly, it was sunny the other day and we felt like a brand new woman that could take on the world! It’s a mood-changer, and we're ready for more.

About this spring salad

Along with the crisp springtime flavors, we like to accent the fun nature of this Rosé Blend with a flavorful vinaigrette made with rosé wine. The rosé wine is a light and bright flavor in the salad dressing and is complemented with red wine vinegar, honey, Dijon mustard, and a good quality olive oil. If you’d rather not use rosé, no alcohol added red wine vinaigrette would be rich, as well.

Everything works so well together in this salad. The flavorful greens, creamy avocado, tangy cheese, tart grapefruit, springy asparagus, and crunchy almonds. It’s everything you want in a salad, topped with a flavorful vinaigrette. This one is a keeper.

This spring salad is the reliable brunch salad, or an ideal partner to grilled salmon or grilled chicken. Both would be great on top of the salad, or alongside it.

The trickiest part of this salad may be segmenting the grapefruit if you’ve never done it before. If you’re new to this way of cutting citrus fruit, this video will be helpful! Once you have that skill mastered, try making this citrus salad with mint, honey, and lime and citrus salsa.

How To Keep Greens Fresh

When you buy greens that come in a plastic container like Earthbound Farm greens do, after you remove the first serving, fluff up the rest of the greens slightly. They pack a lot into the packages, which is awesome! Fluffing them up a little and giving them “room to breathe” will extend the life of the product. Hat tip to our mom for this advice!

Make this spring salad your own

• Sub in goat cheese. If you’re a goat cheese fan, this salad is fantastic with goat cheese instead of feta cheese.
• Substitute another green. Use any type of lettuce or greens. A crunchy romaine or leaf lettuce would be rich, too.
• Try another citrus. If you don’t have grapefruit, try this salad with orange segments (blood orange would be beautiful!).
• Make it nut-free. If you can’t have nuts, leave them off or try adding crispy chickpeas for the crunchy element.
• Add protein. Try topping the salad with grilled salmon or grilled chicken.

• Yield: 4 salads
• Prep: 20 minutes
• Total: 20 minutes

Ingredients

For the Dressing:

• ¼ cup rosé wine (not sparkling)
• ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 2 teaspoons dijon mustard
• ¼ teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste
• ¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper, or to taste

For the Salad:

• 1 package (5 oz.) tender mixed greens (such as baby spinach, red or green leaf lettuce, mesclun, spring mix)
• 1 pink grapefruit, segmented
• 1 avocado, sliced
• 1 ½ cups asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1 ½ -inch pieces
• ½ cup crumbled feta cheese (see note)
• 1 cup sliced or diced tender-skinned cucumber (such as English, Persian, or mini)
• 2 tablespoons toasted sliced almonds, optional

Method

1. In a dry frying pan over medium-high heat, add cut asparagus and cook, stirring, for 4 to 5 minutes or until tender. Remove from pan and place in an ice bath until ready to use (see note).
2. In a small jar or a measuring cup, combine rosé wine, olive oil, vinegar, honey, mustard, salt, and pepper. Whisk or shake to combine.
3. Compose salad on serving plates beginning with a layer of greens. Top with grapefruit, avocado, cooked asparagus, feta, cucumber, and toasted almonds.
4. Drizzle dressing over top of each salad and serve immediately.

Notes

Topping measurements are all suggestions, feel free to add more or less of your favorite toppings.

We like to use block feta cheese (not the kind you buy already crumbled) for this recipe and crumble it myself. It’s much creamier and more flavorful.

You could also put this salad in a large serving bowl and serve it family-style.

Create an ice bath for the asparagus by placing a colander in a bowl of ice water. When the asparagus is done cooking, dump it into the colander which is submerged in ice water. This preserves the bright green color of the asparagus and also cools it so it won’t wilt the greens. When you’re ready to add it to the salad, take the colander out of the ice bath, drain water, and sprinkle asparagus on the salad!

You may not use all the dressing, depending on how heavily the salad is dressed.

The salad dressing is not heated, so it does contain alcohol. Use discretion when serving, and do not serve to individuals under 21 years of age.