Summer Salad With Mint Peach Dressing

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I love salads in the summer. They serve as a refreshing meal that won’t weigh you down. I also love that you can really mix up the flavors and feature your favorite ingredients in order to create a healthy and light meal.

Summer Salad With Mint Peach Dressing - vegetarian version
Vegetarian version

For this recipe, I wanted to infuse some of the seasonal foods available during the summer like corn and peaches to create a meal-like salad that would keep me satisfied until dinner.

summer salad

For that, I used a hormone-free steak prepared in a homemade mint peach dressing marinade and spinach mixed with red onions, peaches, corn and goat cheese that was prepared with honey.

Summer Salad With Mint Peach Dressing

Summer Salad with Mint Peach Dressing
Yield: 2 servings

Ingredients

  • 3 cups spinach salad
  • 1 ear shucked yellow corn
  • 1/4 red onion, peeled and diced
  • 1/4 cup goat cheese
  • 1 tsp honey
  • 3 cloves minced garlic
  • 1 medium peach, cut up with skin
  • 1 steak (I used a natural sirloin.)
  • drizzle of olive oil (for cooking steak)
  • to taste/a pinch or two of sea salt and black pepper 

Dressing

  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 cup balsamic vinegar
  • 1-2 tbsps dijon mustard
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 1/2 lemon, cut up
  • 1 medium peach, cut up with skin
  • 4 sprigs fresh mint
  • to taste/a pinch or two of sea salt and black pepper

Cooking Directions

  1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Cut up one of the peaches and the lemon.
  3. Place the peach on a baking pan and drizzle it with some olive oil.
  4. Add some fresh mint and the lemon to the peach and set aside.
  5. Shuck the corn and mince the garlic.
  6. Add the corn to another baking pan and drizzle it with some olive oil and coat it in garlic, salt and pepper.
  7. Place the peach and corn and olive oil in the stove and let cook for 15 minutes.
  8. While that is cooking, prepare the dressing/marinade.
  9. In a small bowl, add the vinegar, olive oil, mustard, mint, sugar, lemon and salt and pepper.
  10. Whisk the ingredients together and set them aside.
  11. Remove the peaches from the oven (when tender) and let them cool.
  12. When ready, add the peaches to the dressing and place all of the contents into a blender until smooth. Set aside.
  13. Add some of the dressing/marinade to a pan (enough to coat the steak), along with some olive oil.
  14. Heat the marinade on a low flame and add the steak. Let the meat cook based on your desired temperature. (I cooked mine until it was medium-well – about 15 minutes.)
  15. As the steak is cooking, it’s time to prepare your salad.
  16. Add a handful or spinach leaves to a bowl.
  17. Cut up the onion, the second peach and the corn and add them to the salad bowl.
  18. Crumble some goat cheese into another bowl and lightly drizzle it with honey. Mix together and then add the cheese to the salad bowl.
  19. When the steak is ready, slice it and add it to the salad. Coat the salad in your desired amount of dressing and enjoy!

Recipe Note:
It is simple to make a vegetarian version of this salad. Simply leave out the steak.

I hope that you enjoy this hearty salad and that you will experiment with some new salad variations yourself this summer! What are some of your favorite summer salads?