This spinach salad recipe is so flavorful, you'll want to make it often. Fresh spinach, red onion, navel oranges and smoky bacon create a mix of flavors and textures you will enjoy any time of the year.
The ingredient exchanges listed below will give you a variety of ideas to make several salads from this single recipe, as well as, an easy way to turn this spinach salad recipe into a meal fit for a vegetarian.
See the simple menu planner for great quick meal ideas.
red onion - 1 small onion cut in half and sliced thinly
navel orange - 1 large orange - peel, remove pith and cut in between the membrane to remove each section (as you remove the sections do all of your cutting over a bowl and save the juice)
bacon - 3 to 4 strips cooked (reserve the pan drippings) (cook bacon as your last step because you want drippings to be warm when you add them to the salad)
Instead of Red Onion: *Leeks - 1 cup sliced thinly with rings separated or *Red or White Radish - 1 cup thinly sliced
Instead of Orange: *Mandarin Oranges - 1 small can in light syrup (use 1/2 cup of syrup to dress salad)or *Tangerines - 2 small (prepared the same as the orange) or *Red Grapefruit - 1 small or 1/2 large (prepared the same as the orange)
Instead of Bacon: *(For Vegetarians) Soy Bacon - 3 to 4 strips prepared according to package directions
(add 1 tbsp of olive oil to substitute for the bacon drippings)
Try the following additions to make this spinach salad more of a meal by itself.
*Hard Boiled Eggs - add 1 or 2 chopped or *Cheese - sharp cheddar, munster or swiss (1 cup cut into chunks) or *Tofu - great addition for the vegetarian (add 1 cup cut into cubes) (try one of the flavored varieties)
