Photo: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
Bacon can save a salad. There’s no single formula for a salad, but we’ve all had ones that needed a star ingredient. The only downfall to simply tossing in a handful of chopped bacon is that the darn stuff falls to the bottom, and it’s hard to stab with a fork due to its crispy wiles. Stop losing your bacon to the bottom of the salad—try blending it straight into the dressing instead.
You could blend bacon into many sauces (or soups) to subtly introduce meat, smoke, and salt, but I find that salads really benefit from the blended bacon element. The crisp bacon shatters into countless teeny-tiny meat particles, suspended and smothered in the liquid ingredients of the dressing. Once tossed with the main salad components, the oils and fats of the dressing cradle the bacon bits and coat each hunk and shred of vegetation. Instead of searching the bottom for lost slivers, the bacon effortlessly adheres to the salad components, delivering delicious smoke and salt with every bite.
Making a dressing that boasts bacon is, thankfully, simple. Depending on how bacon-forward you want it, cook two to four strips of bacon until very crispy. I bake my bacon because it’s hands-off, I can cook it low and slow to allow even the fattiest parts to crisp up, and don’t like to fuss with fat splatter on my stove top. You can use a wire rack to bake the bacon this way, or just cover a baking sheet with foil and lay the bacon straight on it. Try to get the strips as evenly crisped as possible, but any fatty bits will still blend so it’s not the end of the salad-world. Load all of the dressing ingredients along with the cooked bacon strips into a standard blender, or into a cup for an immersion blender, and blend. After about 20 to 30 seconds, you will have a blended bacon salad dressing to drizzle upon whatever you please.
Adding bacon to salad dressing in this manner works best with looser dressings, like oil and vinegar, dijon vinaigrette, or a buttermilk dressing. That doesn’t mean you can’t add it to thick and creamy dressings, though. In that case, break up the bacon dry. You can do this in a food processor if you have one that will mill it finely. My food processor is hit or miss, so I would bake the bacon extra crispy, chop it finely, then give it a smash with my mortar and pestle to get finer bits. Then simply stir it into your creamy dressing before adding it to your salad. Luckily, a thick dressing will support bacon pieces that are more hefty, so you’re in good shape even if you have to finely chop by hand.
This recipe is for a lovely honey bacon dijon dressing that I use on nearly everything (with or without the bacon). The added fat from the pork gives it a slightly creamy consistency that, if you toss it in the fridge for ten minutes, takes on an airy, whipped texture.
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Honey Bacon Dijon Salad Dressing
Ingredients:
4 strips of thinly cut bacon, cooked crispJuice of 1 lemon2 tablespoons of olive oil2 teaspoons honey1 teaspoon dijon mustard¼ teaspoon saltPut all of the ingredients into a blender, cover, and blend. After 20 seconds, check the consistency of the bacon bits, and taste. Adjust for salt, acid, or sweetness to taste. Blend again if you want the bacon bits to be finer.
