Steak Salad is the perfect easy and delicious protein packed salad for your next lunch or dinner!
This Steak Salad brings me back to when I worked a 60+ hour week and wore suits with high heels to work. Once upon a time, when lawyering was my thing, there was an overpriced restaurant near our firm and they had a cranberry and goat cheese steak salad that I obsessed with. So, I decided to make it at home. Try it alongside a bowl of creamy broccoli cheese soup for the best lunch ever!
Steak Salad
Steak Salad Ingredients
- Lettuce, Spring Mix
- Dried cranberries (unsweetened, if you can find them)
- Pumpkin seed kernels (or pine nuts)
- Goat cheese, crumbled
- Cooked steak, sliced thin
- Balsamic dressing
How do you make a steak salad?
⭐ First, find a big bowl and pile the ingredients together. Use more goat cheese and cranberries than you think are neccessary.
⭐ Next, pour a generous helping of balsamic dressing over top.
⭐ Then, enjoy.
⭐ Finally, have seconds.
What type of steak in steak salad?
Any type of steak is fine! I usually gravitate toward the less expensive cuts like top or bottom round, because it’s going to be cut thinly, so you won’t have to worry about it being a little tough.
Also, it’s leaner. The fattiness of other cuts is great when you need that flavor to stand alone, but in a salad you have lots of flavors coming together so the fat isn’t necessary.
Flank steak and skirt steak also work well! We have a fabulous flank steak marinade that would be perfect with this salad.
How do you cook steak for a steak salad?
Any way you like, really! Sometimes on Sundays we’ll do a big meal prep on the grill and have steak to use for all different meals throughout the week. Other times I throw it under the broiler for a few minutes. Broiled flank steak is great!
You can even do a restaurant style steaks if you’re feeling fancy! Probably not necessary for a simple steak salad, but hey – maybe you’re trying to impress someone?
What to put in steak salad?
Steak salads are so versatile – this is goat cheese and cranberry version is my personal favorite. We also make this yummy balsamic salad dressing to go with it. As for the pumpkin seeds, you can use those, or pine nuts, or sunflower seeds!
More cranberry recipes to try
- Cranberry upside down cake
- Cranberry apple butter recipe
- Homemade cranberry sauce
- Goat cheese and cranberry cheese ball
- Thanksgiving stuffing with cranberries
Steak recipes to try next
More salad recipes
- Fig and Blue Cheese Spinach Salad
- Bacon Maple Dijon Dressing
- Spinach and Pear Salad
- The Ultimate Loaded Burger Salad
- Easy Antipasto Salad
- Weeknight Taco Salad
- Balsamic Avocado and Blue Cheese Salad
- See all our healthy salad recipes!
Tools we love
- OXO Good Grips Green Salad Spinner – Make sure your salad isn’t watered down by using this OXO salad spinner. We love it for spinning our broccoli before roasting too!
- Anchor Hocking Glass Cruet With Stopper – Are you obsessed with making your own salad dressings like I am? You’ll need a dozen or so of these. Yassssss.
- Lipper International Small Bamboo Bowls, Set of 4 – Children of the eighties will be especially nostalgic for wooden salad bowls. Why did we always eat salad out of wooden bowls? I don’t know, but P.S. I love it.
- Lipper International Bamboo Salad Bowl – You’d better believe we’re serving the salad from a wooden bowl too!
- Wide Mouth Pint and a Half Mason Jars – these are the best mason jars for salads. Perfect size and nice wide opening, so you can eat the salad right from the jar if you’d like!
How to Make the Best Steak Salad
Steak Salad
Ingredients
- Lettuce Spring Mix
- Dried cranberries unsweetened, if you can find them
- Pumpkin seed kernels or pine nuts
- Goat cheese crumbled
- Cooked steak sliced thin
- Balsamic dressing
Instructions
- Find a big bowl and pile the ingredients together. Use more goat cheese and cranberries than you think are neccessary.
- Pour a generous helping of balsamic dressing over top.
- Enjoy. Have seconds.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Looking for a potluck salad? How about this cold tuna pasta salad!
Sandra Shaffer says
I have a stash of pine nuts that I save just for the right recipe. Looks like I’m breaking them out! The balsamic dressing is perfect over steak!
Erica says
April! You’re speaking to my heart with this salad! I’m NOT a huge fan of salads in general – UNLESS they’re packed full of delicious protein and cheese like this one is! Love it!
Martin Nichols says
can I use feta cheese instead of the goat cheese not a big fan of it.
April Woods says
absolutely 🙂