Strawberry Chicken Salad with Lemon Poppy Seed Dressing

I have the most amazing salad recipe! It’s, sweet, savory, tangy, and crunchy…all in one bite! This strawberry Chicken Salad with Homemade Poppy Seed Dressing is a refreshing salad topped with crunchy candied pecans, sweet strawberries, and salty feta cheese. This salad will energize your tastebuds!

You have not lived until you’ve made a salad with strawberries. I had not lived until I ate a similar salad to this one recently so I had to recreate it…and believe it or not, my version is better!

This strawberry chicken salad with a homemade lemon poppyseed dressing is already easy to make, but I will give you some shortcut options to make it even easier.

Ingredients needed

This section explains how to choose the best ingredients for this strawberry chicken salad recipe, what each one does in the recipe, and substitution options. For a printable recipe, see the recipe card below.

Build your salad: 

• Raw baby spinach – a couple handfuls per serving
• frozen diced chicken about 3 ounces per serving – this is a great shortcut ingredient! Just buy a bag of frozen diced chicken at the grocery store and heat it up in the microwave. Chicken done!
• Sliced stawberries – 2-3 strawberries per serving
• Crumbled feta cheese – 1 ounce per serving

Candied Pecans:

• 1 Cups Pecans
• 1/4 Cup Granular Sweetener – I use a sugar free sweetener but you can just use sugar if you want!
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 egg white, beaten until frothy

Lemon Poppy Seed Dressing: 

• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 4 Ounces Greek Yogurt – I like to use plain, fat free
• 2 Tablespoons avocado oil – any oil will work!
• 2 teaspoons lemon zest
• 1 teaspoon poppy seeds
• 2 teaspoons Powdered Sweetener – again, I use a sugar free sweetener but you can use powdered sugar.

How to make this amazing strawberry chicken salad

This section explains how to make this strawberry chicken salad recipe, step by step. For a full printable recipe, see the recipe card below.

Let’s get all of our components together for this delicious salad.

Lemon Poppy Seed Dressing: 

• In small mixing bowl, combine your lemon juice, greek yogurt, avocado oil, lemon zest, poppy seeds and powdered sweetener. Whisk until all your ingredients are combined. Makes 4 generous servings

Keto Candied Pecans: 

• Preheat the oven to 250F. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. 
• In a mixing bowl, mix together the pecan halves and the egg white. In another large bowl, mix together the sweetener and salt. Add in the pecan halves and the egg white and mix well to coat the pecans.
• Lay the pecans out on the baking sheet in a single layer. Bake in the oven for 30-45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes. The pecans will brown and get crunchy. Let cool for 10 minutes.

Build your Salad: 

• In your salad bowl, add a couple handfuls of baby spinach. Top with strawberry slices, diced chicken (that has been already heated through), candied pecans, feta cheese crumbles and homemade poppy seed dressing. Enjoy!

Meal prep your salad: Use a bowl big enough for a good salad with an airtight lid. Have a separate small bowl that is just big enough to hold a serving of dressing. Better yet, they have kits you can buy on Amazon that make salad prep easier.

Keep your chicken in a separate bag or bowl so it can be reheated. I like my chicken to be warm on my salads.

More easy salad recipes

• Buffalo Chicken Salad for One
• Italian Chopped Salad Recipe
• Asian Chopped Salad
• Greek Chicken Bowls