Strawberry Spinach Pasta Salad with light poppy seed dressing! Filled with fruit and veggies making this a great dish to share at a potluck or cookout!
This pasta salad has a very light dressing that coats all the ingredients with just the right amount of flavor! It’s a perfect dish to bring to an outdoor event because it can be packed up and left for several hours without refrigeration. There aren’t any dairy ingredients in this recipe like mayonnaise that should be kept cool.
I tripled this homemade poppy seed dressing that I toss with a simple green salad with fruit. The nutty poppy seeds folded into the dressing tastes delicious with the pasta, Popeye’s kryptonite and strawberries!
This tastes best when you coat all the ingredients and eat it soon after, but if you have leftovers the next day the pasta will soak up most of the dressing, so you might want to whisk together another batch to bring the salad back to life!
For any of you that try to sneak in extra veggies in your diet, you’ll be glad to know that this Strawberry Spinach Pasta Salad is the perfect vessel for that! Since the spinach is sliced up it looks like lettuce, and for some spinach veggie hating folks that seems to be easier to accept!
Serve with a lean protein like this turkey wrap or these baked chicken tenders for a complete meal!
- 1 lb. bow tie pasta, cooked
- 3 cups baby spinach, chopped
- 1 lb. strawberries, sliced
- Poppy Seed Dressing¼ cup water
- ¾ cup raspberry vinegar (or cider)
- 3 tablespoon honey
- 3 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
- 3 teaspoon cornstarch
- 1½ teaspoon salt
- ¾ teaspoon onion powder
- ¾ teaspoon mustard powder
- 3 teaspoon poppy seeds
- PASTA
- Cook pasta according to Brand's directions and cool
- DRESSING
- In a small saucepan add water, vinegar, honey, olive oil, cornstarch, salt, onion powder, mustard powder and poppy seeds. Bring ingredients just to a boil whisking constantly. Remove form heat when desired consistency is reached (no more than 30 seconds). Let cool.
- ASSEMBLE
- In a large bowl toss together pasta, spinach and strawberries . Add cooled dressing and fold over all ingredients. Enjoy!
I make something very similar and absolutely love it!! Thanks for inspiring me to whip up a batch ASAP!
It’s the season for lots sharing 🙂
Omg this salad looks amazing!! I can’t wait to make it!
Thank you, Sam! I hope you love this pasta salad!!
I have been looking for new and different salads to change up the routine. What a gorgeous salad you have created here and I love the dressing!
Thank you, Christine! The dressing is so light and just the right amount of flavor to change things up a little!
I just love that you added strawberries to a pasta salad! 🙂 And that homemade poppy seed dressing sounds amazing.
Strawberry season is just starting too! I think I’m going to have quite a few dishes using them up in!
This is such a great combination! I would never have thought to pair strawberries with pasta – but why not?
Especially this time of year when they’re so abundant! Love me some strawberries!
It is so funny (in a positive) way to see so many little tiny dots of poppy seeds to the salad 😀 In fact I think that it adds a different dimention to the whole dish… Thumbs up!
Poppy seeds are so tiny, but they do show up in this dish nicely! Just don’t drop any on the kitchen counter —- you’ll find them for days!! haha
Such a pretty salad Sandra. Would be perfect for a bbq! I love the poppyseed dressing.