This salad was an accident, a delicious one though. I was craving my mom’s warm spinach salad with bacon dressing, but we didn’t have any spinach. We also had a ton of stuff in the fridge that needed to be used up and I couldn’t quite justify going out to buy spinach when we had a ton of ingredients at home. The end result was this salad. It has definitely earned a place in the family rotation.
Chef Salad with Bacon Dressing
Serves 3 (or so, just bump up the toppings for 4 adults. Or serve bread)
1 head romaine, washed, dried and sliced or torn into bite sized pieces
4 slices bacon
1/4 yellow, red or white onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1 medium or large tomato, chopped
2 hard boiled eggs, chopped
1/4 cup cheese, grated or crumbled (I used colby, but any cheese will do)
3/4 cup cooked chicken, chopped
- Cook bacon in a skillet over medium heat.
- While bacon is cooking, chop vegetables and start arranging in a bowl.
- Put lettuce on the bottom, then add chicken, egg, cheese, tomato to the top and put in the fridge to keep cool.
- When bacon is finished cooking (about 15 minutes), remove bacon from pan, pour off bacon grease and begin cooking onion in the bacon pan, on medium-high heat.
- Chop bacon, add 3 slices to salad and keep one out for dressing. (This could probably be done with 2 or 3 slices total, but 4 is what we had left. Just you what you have)
- When the onion is translucent and cooked through, about 8 minutes, add the reserved bacon back in to the pan. Cook for a few minutes and then add the vinegar to the pan. Stir well to combine, being sure to scrape up any bacon bits stuck to the pan.
- Turn off the heat and let sit in the pan for a few minutes to cool.
- Pour over the salad and enjoy! I poured it in stripes to make it pretty and it mixed in pretty well during the serving process.
Bacon Dressing
