This Spinach Mandarin Poppy Seed Salad is pretty much a guaranteed hit at parties. My insanely picky 5-year-old eats it with minimal coaxing. My 2-year-old closes her eyes and sighs (she does it when she eats sushi, too…it’s pretty darn cute). Plus, it’s quick, easy, and cheap.
It has that addictive sweet and salty thing going on with smoky crumbled bacon, bright red onion, creamy avocados, and sweet mandarin orange segments. It’s all topped off with a sprinkle of cheese and a good dousing of poppy seed dressing to bring everything together. I promise you’ll love this one!
Ingredients Needed
This is just a preview of ingredients and method, keep scrolling for full printable recipe.
- Baby spinach
- Romaine lettuce
- Red onion
- Avocado
- Shredded cheese – Moazzarella or Swiss.
- Bacon – Cooked and crumbled.
- Canned mandarin oranges
- Poppyseed dressing – Grab your favorite brand from the store, or make your own using this Homemade Poppyseed Dressing recipe.
How to Make a Spinach Mandarin Poppy Seed Salad
- For your salad base, you’ll use a mixture of baby spinach and romaine lettuce.
- Toss in some thinly sliced red onions, cubed avocado, cooked bacon crumbles, mandarin orange segments, and shredded cheese.
- That all gets tossed together with your favorite poppy seed dressing for a delicious, easy salad!
Storing and Other Tips
- This salad is best eaten soon after assembly. If you’re making it for an event, combine everything but the avocados and dressing. Add those when ready to serve.
- Add some grilled chicken to make it a meal!
Frequently Asked Questions
In my opinion, yes! I also like that I know exactly what ingredients went into it. This Homemade Poppy Seed Dressing recipe has just a handful of simple ingredients and is so good!
Sure. Some toasted or candied pecans, walnuts, or almonds would great, in my opinion! Craisins would also be delicious.
This salad works well for either. I love serving it at parties, but it’s delicious as a meal as well, especially if you add some protein like leftover grilled chicken!
Spinach Mandarin Poppy Seed Salad
Ingredients
- 8 ounces baby spinach (about half a bag)
- ½-1 head Romaine lettuce chopped
- ½ thinly sliced medium red onion
- 1 large avocado cubed
- 8 ounces mozzarella or Swiss cheese shredded
- 12 ounces bacon (1 package) cooked and crumbled
- 1 large can Mandarin oranges drained
- poppy seed dressing to taste
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients except dressing in a large bowl. When ready to serve, toss with desired amount of salad dressing and serve immediately.
Notes
- Nutritional information does not include dressing.
- If you anticipate leftovers, just let your eaters dress their own salads because the dressing will make the greens wilt.
Questions & Reviews
I made this for a family bbq last weekend and everyone loved it. I sent at least 4 people to your website for the recipe. I will definitely be making this again. Thanks for another yummy recipe! I can always trust your recipes to be amazing!
Made this for a baby shower today and EVERYONE was asking for the recipe! Definitely a keeper! That dressing?! OH. MY. YUM. I could drink that stuff! This was the first time I had ever made this salad, but as others have mentioned nothing on your site is bad so I knew it would be delicious!
This was the most amazing salad ever! Made it for a friend’s “girl’s night” without testing it first (as I do trust everything on this site to be fantastic 🙂 and it was a big hit! Everyone was so impressed that the dressing was homemade, but it was quite obvious as the flavour you could never get from store bought. The only downfall was the amount of bacon I ate while I was getting things put together … and I NEVER eat bacon :).
I’m a big salad girl but get tired of the classic lettuce/tomato/carrots/cucumber/green pepper salad I usually make. I’m not a huge avacado fan and definitely do not do raw onion but in the interest of being adventurous I gave this salad a try and OH my goodness I loved it! Red onions and all! I made one for dinner last and packed up two in tupperware containers for lunch today and ended up eating the one for dinner and breaking open one of the lunch containers too. So glad I stepped out of my salad comfort zone! 🙂
Just found your blog last week and I LOVE it! I made this salad tonight–it’s a new favorite!! Delicious!
This was DIVINE! Thanks for the great recipe. I love pretty much anything with bacon in it. 🙂
I never try out a recipe for the first time when we have company over. It's just too risky. 🙂 But I've tried a bunch of your recipes and they've all been winners, so I tried out this recipe tonight when we had some friends over. It was a hit. Thank you for being my go-to foodie site. 🙂
I made this for a salad potluck and was so glad! Yes, like most salads, you could subsitute the mandarin oranges for strawberries or craisins or add nuts instead of the bacon, but this combinations of ingredients was really, reeeeeally good. I'm going to be sure to stick with this combo every time. DELISH!
My niece & I tried this salad today for lunch and it was yummy!! We changed it around a bit by adding fresh strawberries, leaving the cheese off & adding sesame seeds to the dressing instead of poppy seeds, but was it ever good. Wewill definitely be having it again!
Great work, ladies!
Leslie
I made this salad for a Mothers Day luncheon at church a couple of days ago. I made two batches and we ran out. I would say if you are making it for a lot of people, my two batches were enough for about 40 women. I didn't get any, didn't even taste it after I made it because I was so busy running around getting set up for the ladies in RS. So, tonight, two days later, I made it for my family so that I could taste it. UNBELIEVABLE salad. I loved the fresh dressing. I saw this same salad with chicken and nuts using basically the same dressing too. You could be versitle with it.