You might not typically think of the words “warm” with “salad,” but this warm spinach salad recipe is excellent!

This protein-rich salad is loaded with vibrant, nutrient-dense vegetables and good fats. You want to chop the greens roughly so that every tasty bite has bite-sized greens, and the combination of the crispy bacon, crunchy apples, and properly roasted butternut squash is just too good.

It’s also incredibly adaptable and adjustable. Although spinach salad is a classic, you may use any type of greens here, such as baby kale, Swiss chard, beetroot greens, or a combination. Use delicata squash or kabocha in place of butternut squash. Replace the goat cheese with feta and the walnuts with pecans or pine nuts. Swap out the honey mustard and try it with ranch dressing. There is no way to go wrong. Once you’ve had warm spinach salad, you’ll want to experiment with a tonne of various flavours.

Warm Green Salad

Serves: 4.

Fifty minutes spent in the kitchen

Components

Guidelines

Turn the oven’s temperature up to 375 F. (190 degrees Celsius).

Arrange the bacon on a rimmed sheet pan and bake it in the oven until the desired level of crispiness is achieved. This should take 20 minutes or so, but begin checking after 15. Transfer the bacon to a plate covered with towels using tongs. Once it has cooled down sufficiently, coarsely cut the bacon and reserve.

A roasting pan full with crispy bacon.

In the meantime, gently throw the cubed butternut squash onto the baking sheet with the bacon fat. Put the pan back in the oven, spread out the butternut squash, and roast for 20 minutes. After turning the squash over, bake it for a further five to ten minutes, or until it turns brown. Transfer the squash to a big enough bowl so you can mix together all the salad ingredients.

Butternut squash cubes roasted and placed on a roasting pan

To reheat the bacon, return the chopped bacon to the pan and put it back in the oven for a few minutes. Roughly slice the baby spinach and arugula leaves into bite-sized pieces in batches while the bacon is warming up.

Toss in the squash along with the warm bacon, diced onion, walnuts, chicken, apple, and/or cheese, if desired. Stir the Primal Kitchen Honey Mustard dressing into the ingredients gently.

In a big bowl, combine chicken, bacon, butternut squash, walnuts, and red onion.

When the egg and chopped greens are added, gently toss everything to blend. The spinach and arugula will gently wilt as you toss the salad. Save leftovers for the following day or eat them right away.

Warm spinach salad topped with sliced red onion, cubed apples, butternut squash, walnuts, and Primal Kitchen Honey Mustard.

Advice:

You can use any protein you’d want, leftover chicken, roasted chicken breast diced, or a rotisserie chicken.

You can substitute turnips or radishes for the butternut squash to keep the carbs lower.

You can also gently sauté the greens before adding them to the mixing bowl, if you’d like, even though combining them with the warm ingredients would cause them to wilt a little.

How to Boil Eggs Hard

How to Cook Eggs Perfectly, Every Time is a post I wrote. The highlights are as follows:

Add a little amount of salt to a saucepan of water and fill it nearly halfway. Heat it until it boils.

Add your eggs to the hot water very carefully.

Cook for 10 minutes to ensure the yolks are properly cooked.

Place the eggs in an ice-filled basin. When they are sufficiently cool to handle, peel.

For more thorough instructions, see the other post. You may also use poached eggs instead of hard-boiled ones on top of the tossed salad for this warm spinach salad. That same post contains poaching instructions for eggs. Have fun!

Nutrition Information (per ¼ of recipe):

446 calories

25 grammes of fat

Compounds total: 22 grammes

17 grammes of nett carbohydrates

35 grammes of protein