Fresh Summer Strawberry Vinaigrette – a vibrant, simple and delicious summer salad dressing!

I know strawberry season is just about over, but before it goes, you NEED to give this salad dressing a try!  It is as fresh as can be and ridiculously delicious!

Strawberry picking was always a staple in my childhood, thankfully.  Every season we would drive out to the orchard to pick as many fresh, juicy strawberries as we possibly could and then my mom would turn them into all kinds of wonderful things: jam, pie, shortcake….. the list goes on and on.  She is one of the reasons I fell in love with cooking, simply because it was always happening.  It was the norm.  I didn’t know any different.  

Sure, we occasionally “splurged,” if that’s even the right term, and went out to McDonalds or wherever else us kids wanted to go, but that was by far the exception.  The rule, on the other hand, was a home-cooked, family dinner every night around the dinner table.  So many times I didn’t want to be there (hello teenage years… you were awesome), but I am so glad she made me.  To this day, I take such pride in making a homemade dinner (even if that is homemade pb&j’s on those crazy nights) and that we all sit down together and talk about our days. And I am excited to pass on that expectation to my girls, this is just the way it is.  Real, homemade food with our family around the dinner table.  There is just something so simple and awesome about that.

One of the other things my mom would make with those hand-picked strawberries was this Fresh Summer Strawberry Vinaigrette – it is so, so simple – I mean we are dealing with strawberries, what else do you really need to add to them to make them taste good.

We would eat just this on top of our salads and it is a favorite summer recipe of mine to this day.  Just picture your spinach salad, maybe some blue cheese, walnuts…. you see where I am going with this.  It is so beautifully simple, and that is part of its charm.

What I did a little differently is played with the texture a bit.  I went for a chunkier version – I am totally digging it.  You can still use a food processor or blender (although I honestly just used the back of a fork to mash the strawberries by hand – just pulse it a bit until you have your desired consistency.

Looking for other fun salads to try?  Check out this Healthy Spring Green Salad + Turmeric Poached Egg!

Alright, bed time for this lady!  Let me know what you think of the dressing!

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