Spinach Salad with Trader Joe’s Sweet Picante Peppers
Updated: Oct 12
Real food. Real cooking. Human tested. 🍋
When life gives you lemons, make something delicious!
Trader Joe’s • Gluten-Free • Vegetarian • Quick & Easy • No-Cook
The Story Behind This Recipe
The inspiration for this salad started with the massive tub of fresh spinach lingering in my fridge from a Costco trip and a few jars of Trader Joe’s Sweet Picante Peppers with Creamy Cheese Filling.
Surprisingly, the prewashed spinach has kept for a pretty long time—about a week and a half! Amazing how much checking expiration dates before you buy can help. I can’t stand it when baby greens start going bad the day after I bring them home.
I love checking out the new products Trader Joe’s comes up with. A while back, I bought a jar of these little peppers, and they sat in my cupboard for months. Then one day, I decided to bring them to the beach as part of an appetizer tray with crackers and olives.
Well, OMG. Who knew these peppers were so good?!
The next time I went to Trader Joe’s, I bought two jars.
So, with a giant container of spinach and my newly discovered pepper obsession, this is what I came up with.
Spinach + Sweet Picante Pepper Salad
Serves 4
Salad Ingredients
6 cups baby spinach
16 Trader Joe’s Sweet Picante Peppers with Creamy Cheese Filling, halved or quartered
½ cup toasted pecans
A few thin slices of red onion or shallot
Aleppo pepper, for finishing
Freshly ground black pepper
Lemon wedges, for serving
Tip: Use a mandoline for the onion or shallot if you have one.
Lemon-Dijon Dressing
4 tablespoons olive oil
4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Small pinch of salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1½–2 teaspoons honey, or to taste
Directions
Add the spinach, pecans, and red onion or shallot to a large salad bowl. Leave the stuffed peppers on the side for now.
Whisk together the olive oil, lemon juice, Dijon, salt, black pepper, and honey.
A note on the honey: I used about 1½ teaspoons because I don’t like my dressing overly sweet. Add a little more if you prefer a sweeter dressing, but remember—the peppers already bring some sweetness to the salad.
Toss the spinach mixture with the dressing.
Plate the salad, then add the halved or quartered peppers to each plate individually. This helps them hold their shape and keeps all that creamy cheese from getting lost in the salad.
Finish with Aleppo pepper, freshly ground black pepper, and a lemon wedge on the side.
Serve and enjoy!
Pantry Swaps & Substitutions
Spinach: Baby lettuce or spring mix would work nicely here too.
Pecans: Walnuts or pine nuts would also be delicious. Candied nuts could make this especially good for Thanksgiving, Christmas, or another holiday meal.
Red onion: Shallot works perfectly in its place.
Sweet Picante Peppers: You could technically replace them with strawberries or another fruit, but you’d really lose what makes this particular salad special. The sweet, tangy peppers and creamy filling are what make it stand out.
What I Thought
Wow! The peppers really shine in this dish. I will definitely make this one again.
We paired it with grilled chicken wings—future notes to come on those—and it was such a lovely combination.
Originally, the salad needed a little more lemon, so I doubled the amount in the recipe above. Both my husband and I immediately reached for the lemon wedges, so I’d definitely keep those on the plate.
Roasted potatoes would also have gone really well with this. Wings and salad alone made for a pretty light dinner, but honestly, that was exactly what I was in the mood for.
