Recipe: Spinach Salad with Warm Brown Butter Dressing

Sarah E Crowder
Sarah E Crowder
Sarah is a vegetable farmer turned photographer and recipe developer. As a food brand photographer at Sarah E Crowder she specializes in audience-building images for social media.
updated May 1, 2019
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Spinach Salad with Warm Brown Butter Dressing

Serves4

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(Image credit: Sarah E Crowder)

While I love bacon dressing, my husband isn’t a fan and our vegetarian friends can’t partake, so I wanted to make an equally delectable warm vinaigrette to toss with an easy spinach salad. The result of using brown butter instead of bacon fat is a salad that’s worth making again and again.

(Image credit: Sarah E Crowder)

For this quick side dish, I kept the classic spinach salad as the base because it holds up so well to the temperature of the dressing. The leaves soften ever-so-slightly without truly wilting. I added tangy pickled onions, briny Pecorino, and toasted pecans.

The vinaigrette itself has depth and nuttiness from the brown butter, plus a zing of balsamic and some sharpness from Dijon mustard. I love how the vinaigrette brings this particular salad together, but I’m also looking forward to trying it on other sturdy salads, like ones with kale or farro. I think it has bacon dressing beat for this reason — it has that same unctuousness, but more adaptability in application.

(Image credit: Sarah E Crowder)
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Spinach Salad with Warm Brown Butter Dressing

Serves 4

Nutritional Info

Ingredients

  • 1/2 pound

    baby spinach (about 5 cups)

  • 1/4 cup

    shaved Pecorino Romano

  • 1/4 cup

    toasted pecans

  • 1/8 cup

    pickled red onions (get the recipe)

  • 4 tablespoons

    (2 ounces) unsalted butter

  • 1 teaspoon

    Dijon mustard

  • 1 teaspoon

    honey

  • 1 tablespoon

    balsamic vinegar

Instructions

  1. In a large bowl, toss the spinach with the cheese, pecans, and pickled onion.

  2. Heat the butter in a small saucepan or skillet over medium heat. Once the butter has melted, begin whisking and continue cooking until it becomes light brown and smells nutty, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and whisk in the mustard, honey, and vinegar until emulsified.

  3. Drizzle the warm dressing over the salad, toss to combine, and serve immediately.

Recipe Notes

  • To gauge when the butter is properly browned, I go more by aroma than color. Once my kitchen fills with that deliciously nutty scent, I know it's ready.
  • I'm partial to balsamic, but other vinegars, like red wine and sherry, work in the recipe too.
Filed in:
appetizer
dairy
dinner
easy
Gluten-Free
greens