Hot Bacon Vinaigrette

Spinach salad is topped with chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, hard boiled eggs, and bacon! Tossed with a Hot Bacon Vinaigrette Dressing, this salad is a hearty bacon-lover’s dream. 

BACON!!!! On the salad, in the dressing — this is a good day.

Quick note: sometimes I poke around in my archives and find recipes from for-ehhhh-vurrrr ago that are just begging to get in front of new eyes. I made this Hot Bacon Vinaigrette Salad for dinner last week and decided it NEEDED to be shared. Because we love bacon, right?

Right.

So please don’t be confused by the weird mentions of Christmas trees or Santa Claus in this post. This is a recipe that will happily grace our table no matter the time of year. And bonus!!! In the summer all the produce (read: tomatoes!!!) are in season.

When I originally shared this recipe I made it with what I think were basically the freshest, prettiest greens I ever ate. We bought our Christmas tree from a local nursery that weekend. It’s run by this adorable retired couple who I’d really like to be in 40 years – they have greenhouses filled with flowers EVERYWHERE on a property that is secluded and gorgeous down a little paved road that winds through the woods. They have a few happy lazy dogs (and one gigantic sun-bathing cat) that wander in and out with the customers. And while their daughter rang up our purchases, I spied them at the two-seater dinette table in their tiny kitchen/cozy break room sharing a turkey sandwich.

Before we left they loaded us up with allllllllll these fresh greens that they literally cut straight out of the ground and handed to me to stuff in a plastic sack.

Gifted greens.

From the cutest couple ever. I mean it.

I went with spinach in my remake because there were no freshly cut gorgeous greens at the grocery store. Spinach and bacon go really good together.

At the original publish date for this Hot Bacon Dressing, we had the holidays on the horizon and Evan was still trying to Santa-stump me. He was asking me how the reindeer manage to be so quiet when they land on our roof? I told him that surely if they are magical enough to fly then they can land with a bit of grace and ease. Then I tried to distract him by telling him about the reindeer food recipe that Jenn gave me. It has sugar and oats!!! But my little chatterbox was not done with me yet.

He informed me that he is asking Santa for one of the elves’ hats for Christmas this year. He is totally serious. I asked him what was he going to do with an elf hat? He laughed at me like I was ridiculous and said, “I’m gonna wear it, what do you think?”

Obviously I am not with the program.

I may have been distracted by all the bacon.

Based on THIS recipe at Chow.com

If you love bacon, you’re also gonna wanna try…

 

Roasted Jalapeno and Bacon Macaroni

BBQ Bites with Apple Bacon Slaw