This Farmers Market Salad is filled with colorful, fresh veggies, creamy avocado, and homemade sweet basil dressing. Perfect as an easy lunch or light dinner, this spring salad is customizable with whatever fresh farmers market produce you have on hand!
Farmers market season is upon us!
That means it’s time to enjoy all the fresh fruit and vegetables. Big salads are a great way to use a variety of vegetables or fruit that you find at your local farmers market. The beauty of salads is that the combinations are endless. You can really customize them to your liking.
How do you like your spring salad?
I like my salads to be super loaded with lots of fresh veggies and a super flavorful dressing. I enjoy cooking with the seasons. In the fall, I might use sweet potatoes and roasted butternut squash or whatever else is in season. That’s why I love scoping out the farmers market to stock up on all the seasonal produce.
This farmers market salad comes together in no time at all! It’s super easy. The most time-consuming part is chopping up the veggies, which takes a matter of minutes. It feels good to take the time to prepare a healthy meal.
Let’s talk about this Sweet Basil Dressing!
This Sweet Basil Dressing is absolutely DELICIOUS! It requires just a handful of simple ingredients, like fresh basil, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, dijon mustard, and maple syrup. The perfect balance of sweet and tangy. I usually add some protein to this salad too. It’s great with grilled chicken, salmon, or shrimp. You could totally do tempeh too to keep it vegan.
This is a great salad to pack for an easy lunch, serve as a light dinner, or bring to a summer party!
Ingredients
- 5 cups organic spinach
- 1/2 head red cabbage, shredded
- 1 cup alfalfa sprouts
- 12 cherry tomatoes, sliced
- 1 cup sugar snap peas
- 1 cucumber, sliced
- 8 small radishes, sliced
- 1 red or yellow bell pepper, thinly sliced
- 1 medium ripe avocado, sliced
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 lemon, juiced (about 1/4 cup lemon juice)
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 2 garlic clove, minced
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1/2 tsp honey or coconut sugar
- 8 basil leaves, finely chopped
- Freshly ground salt and black pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Pulse everything together in the food processor or blender
- Arrange the greens on a large serving bowl.
- Arrange the other ingredients in groups on top of the greens.
- Serve with the basil lemon vinaigrette on the side.
- If you’re serving it individually, you can place the ingredients evenly in bowls as pictured above and then add the dressing. Enjoy!
Notes
Home Chef Tip: If making for a party, wait to add the dressing right before serving to keep the salad nice and fresh!

We hope you love this Farmers Market Salad with Sweet Basil Dressing from SoFabFood Home Chef, Nicole from Living Well with Nic. If you enjoyed this simple and healthy recipe, you can find more like it by visiting our Salad Section. For daily recipe inspiration, subscribe to our newsletter, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Pinterest. Enjoy!
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