Watercress Salad with Strawberries and Feta! Such a great way to enjoy fresh spring fruits and vegetables. Toss with a simple champagne vinaigrette.

Photography Credit: Sally Vargas

Featured in 10 Salads to Take for Lunch

Spring has finally arrived, and with it the appearance of longed-for exhilarating spring flavors. Like strawberries!

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Once you have savored these fresh, ripe berries for breakfast, in a pie, and in a bowl covered with cream, you’ll start looking around for other ways to use them.

Might I suggest this simple, yet beautiful, spring salad?

This salad features all four of my favorite flavor components: something sweet (juicy strawberries), salty (fresh feta), crunchy (toasted almonds), and refreshing (cucumbers).

Add one more element of “something unexpected” and you have a salad that really sings. Here, the surprise is the peppery explosion of watercress and radishes and some lively mint. (You could use either mint or basil, or both, depending on what you can find—they add a nice punch to the salad.)

If you are lucky enough to find young watercress with thin, tender stems, you will not need to do anything except rinse and shake off the moisture. For bunches with thicker, tougher stems, just remove the bottom thick ends, and keep the leaves on their upper stems.

And let’s not leave out the visuals. Serve this stunning tangle of spring ingredients all by itself on salad plates so you can really show off its beauty. It’s almost too pretty to eat! But of course, you should.