Bacon, Lettuce, Avocado, and Tomato Salad

This is a delicious salad either as a meal on its own or as a side dish. At the moment it is probably my favorite and most common lunch meal. The ingredients seem to change each time I make it, but some of my favorite variations are: feta instead of cheddar, halved olives (kalamata preferably), button mushrooms halved and cooked in a frying pan with some butter and salt.

This recipe is part of our Memorial Day Menu.

Ingredients:

These ingredient quantities are very loose, feel free to vary them depending on what you have available, personal preference, and the amount of people you’re serving.

Makes 4 large servings (it’s so good that a small serving just isn’t enough)

  • 8-10 Slices of bacon– Dry cured bacon is the best, but anything will do
  • 2 Avocados – These need to be ripe and creamy.
  • 3 Large handfuls of ripe cherry tomatoes OR 3 large ripe tomatoes – The sweeter your tomatoes, the yummier your salad. If you can’t find any ripe tomatoes, omit them
  • ½ Medium red onion
  • 2 Large handfuls of grated cheese, preferably cheddar
  • 4 Large handfuls of lettuce – We were lazy and used a store bought salad mixture which was baby spinach, rocket, and various other little green leaves that I couldn’t identify
  • Caesar Dressing, to taste
  • Salt & Pepper, to taste

    • Step One: Chopping and Preparation

    Cook your bacon in a frying pan with a little oil. How long you cook it for depends on your preference. I like it crispy, my husband likes it chewy, so we cook it until slightly crispy as a compromise (that way neither of us are entirely satisfied). When the bacon is done to your liking, chop it up.

    Chop the onions finely, the idea is to have they pieces small enough that they mix in and you don’t get big bites of onion while eating the salad.

    Slice the avocados into fairly large chunks, be careful not to make the pieces too small or they will dissolve into mush when you toss the salad

    Cut the tomatoes into halves or quarters if you’re using cherry tomatoes, otherwise cut them into a chunky dice.

    Wash the lettuce and chop it into bite sized pieces, even if the leaves you start with are fairly small, like baby spinach, it still makes for a much nicer salad if you chop them up into smaller pieces.

    Grate a couple of handfuls of cheese, if you don’t want cheese in your salad, feel free to leave it out, it will still be delicious!

    Step 2: Mixing it all up

    Put the lettuce in a large serving bowl, add the tomatoes, onions, avocados, bacon, and cheese. Mix it up and decide if the proportions of the ingredients seem right to you. Since we had found such delicious tomatoes at the farmer’s market, we decided to put a few more in.

    Drizzle some caesar dressing over the top, but don’t put too much on, it goes further than you’d think. Mix it up again, the dressing should finely coat all the ingredients but not be gloopy. (However, if you like gloopy salads, then by all means, add some more!)

    Don’t forget to taste it. Does it need salt or pepper? Add if necessary (This will depend on the brand of salad dressing and the amount you’ve used).

    Ta-Da! A delicious BLAT salad awaits, which by the way, goes perfectly with our Fool-Proof Baby Back Ribs Recipe.

May 2nd, 2010

Posted In: Recipes