BLT Salad with Tarragon Vinaigrette

One of my favorite things about this salad is that it is a deconstructed sandwich that has easily swappable ingredients. Certain ingredients can easily be swapped to still have the idea or flavor of a BLT sandwich without too much fat or calories. This is a ridiculously flavorful salad that I came up with by using leftovers. I mixed up some plain green cabbage with some shredded kale leaves and added some diced tomatoes and turkey bacon.  Instead of using romaine in this salad, (which you could!)  I chose a variety of greens for extra vitamins and nutrition. Lots of iron, fiber, folate and vitamin K among others in kale and cabbage . I like to use Dole salad mixes sometimes too.  I  will often set the dressing aside in the fridge to use another time when I want something in a hurry.  I love the dole salad mixes.  You could buy a bag of shredded kale and shredded cabbage and mix them together too. This mix happens to have carrot too, which is a good addition to the salad as well.

For this BLT salad, I  diced some sourdough bread slices into cubes and toasted them in the oven on a baking sheet for a few minutes before throwing them into the salad to mock croutons or the bread in a traditional BLT sandwich. You can certainly use gluten free bread cubes or omit the bread all together. I also blended up fresh tarragon into a lemony vinaigrette to create a light accented flavor.

If you’d like a mock BLT with vegetarian ingredients, I like the flavor of this Vegetarian Bacon. Its really yummy to sprinkle in salads and the chipotle flavor is mild. You can find this or a similar vegetarian product fairly common in most grocery stores. I also regularly find coupons online for products like these and sometimes the salad mixes too.   They’re great if you want to sample something new at a discounted price.  For porky lovers, you can use real pork belly too. I happened to have turkey bacon in the fridge and used that this time around. Its a good flavor and lower calorie option.  One of my goals here is to focus on food that is not only delicious but will highlight nutritional value.  I used a small roma tomato in my salad. Fresh avocado is good too!  Enjoy!

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BLT SALAD

A deconstructed Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato Sandwich, in salad form.

Course Dinner, Lunch

Cuisine American

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 5 minutes

Total Time 15 minutes

Servings 4 people

Chef Julie Chef Julie

Ingredients

Salad Dressing

• 3 leaves tarragon chopped finely (or throw into a blender if you have one)
• 1 Tbsp lemon juice
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt

Salad

• 1 cup shredded cabbage
• 1 cup shredded kale
• 1/2 cup chopped tomato
• 1/2 cup chopped and cooked bacon
• 2 cups toasted and chopped sourdough bread

Instructions

1. Mix salad dressing, reserve
2. Chop the sourdough bread into bit size cubes. Put them onto a sheet pan and toast them in a preheated 350 degree oven for 3-5 minutes or until the bread is slightly toasted.
3. Mix cabbage, kale and salad dressing together in a large salad bowl and toss thoroughly to coat the greens.
4. Layer on tomato, bacon and bread, gently mix.
5. Enjoy immediately.

Recipe Notes

This salad will hold up on a buffet and is great for a Potluck meal. Be sure not to add in the bread until you are ready to serve the salad.

This recipe and salad photo are my own. Dole Salad picture is from google.com images.  Please do not reproduce or use  this information without permission of Chef Julie or Emeraldmenus.com. This post does contain affiliate links which help sustain recipe testing and grocery bills.  Dole company did not contact me regarding this salad mix, views are my own.