Wilted Spinach Salad with Bacon Dressing

Salads Suck! Well they don't really suck, but when put against something like a hot piece of pizza with spicy meat, crispy, thin crust, and gooey, melty cheese fresh out of a 500 degree oven and dipped in...Wait, I was talking about salad. Let's face it, we can't eat pizza everyday and getting a healthy dose of greens is one of those things I keep being told is vital to, you know, living.

I really do enjoy a good salad, but I know even healthy eaters will admit that you can really only love salad to a point, and if we are going to eat salad; it has to be great. This Wilted Spinach Salad with Bacon Dressing hits all the right notes with slightly wilted spinach, creamy hard-boiled eggs, almonds, bacon,and more. It is super satisfying and a quick fix for a weeknight meal. When the pizza place is calling; put down the phone and pick up the spinach.

Fast Salads are Better than Fast Foods

This Spinach Salad is super simple and comes together really quickly once you have the bacon and eggs. Planning is everything, so plan to make hard boiled eggs in advance, and give yourself a few minutes to cook up some bacon and slice a little onion. The rest of the ingredients come right out of a package. 

Bacon Dressing for the Win!

Once you have all of your ingredients prepped and organized, it’s time to make the dressing. Take the bacon grease reserved from cooking your bacon and warm it up. Warm it just a little. We don’t need to return to sputtering and smoking, just hot enough you wouldn’t stick your hand directly in it.  

If you reserved your grease from earlier in the day, you can put it in the microwave to warm it up. Run the microwave in short 15 second intervals checking the temperature in between so you don’t create a major mess.

Add pressed/minced garlic and red wine vinegar to the warm, delicious bacon grease and then pour over spinach leaves. Vigorously toss the spinach leaves until they are all fully coated with your dressing, and voila Wilted Spinach Salad with Bacon Dressing.

Wilted Spinach Salad is Anything But Limp

Normally, wilted and salad are not words we like to put together for salad. Images of old lettuce and heavy dressing come to mind. This Wilted Spinach Salad holds up. Baby Spinach is perfect hot or cold, so introducing a little heat with the warm Bacon Dressing tenderizes the leaves just enough. Eggs, Bacon, Dried Cranberries, Feta, Red Onions, and Almonds add depth and crunch.

Wilted Spinach Salad with Bacon Dressing

This Wilted Spinach Salad holds up. Baby Spinach is perfect hot or cold, so introducing a little heat with the warm Bacon Dressing tenderizes the leaves just enough. Eggs, Bacon, Dried Cranberries, Feta, Red Onions, and Almonds add depth and crunch.

5 from 6 votes

Print Pin Rate

Course: Salad

Cuisine: American Classic

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Servings: 4

Calories: 243kcal

Author: Diana Reis

Ingredients

• ▢ 8 C Baby Spinach
• ▢ 4 Hard-boiled Eggs
• ▢ 3 Pieces Bacon
• ▢ ¼ Red Onion
• ▢ ¼ C Crumbled Feta
• ▢ ¼ C Dried Cranberries
• ▢ 2 tablespoon Almonds
• ▢ 2 Cloves Garlic
• ▢ 2 tablespoon Red Wine Vinegar
• ▢ Salt and Pepper

Instructions

• Hard-boil the eggs by placing eggs into pot and cover with cool water. Bring to a low boil and set the timer for 10 minutes. Drain and run cool water over the cooked eggs to stop cooking. Peel and set aside. I like to serve them slightly warm. If you prefer them cold, then make earlier in the day and refrigerate.
• Slice bacon into small pieces and fry. Remove the cooked bacon and place on paper towels to soak up any extra grease. Reserve the bacon grease in the pan for later.
• Measure cleaned spinach into a large mixing bowl.
• Slice your red onion. Measure out your dried fruit, sliced almonds, and feta cheese and set ingredient aside.
• Warm your bacon grease until it gets hot again. Turn off they heat. Mince garlic and add to hot bacon grease along with red vinegar to make a warm vinaigrette to dress the spinach.
• Pour vinaigrette over spinach and toss. The spinach should wilt ever so slightly and have a nice sheen.
• To Build your salad, lay down two cups of greens and the center of a salad plate. Slice an egg and lay it along the side of the plate. Sprinkle bacon, pine nuts, feta, dried fruit, and sliced onion over the top of the greens. Finish with cracked pepper and a sprinkle of salt (if you like extra). Drizzle aged balsamic over the top and enjoy.

Notes

When I plan a salad for dinner; I start by making sure all of by ingredients are washed, chopped, and prepped in whatever way they need to be.

I prefer to buy baby spinach for this dish over mature leaf bundles. There are no stems in a package of baby spinach and the leaves are tender and sweet to eat raw.

The warm dressing will tenderizer the leaves slightly, but not enough to truly cook them.

A mature leaf bundle can be fine, but you must remove the stems. The stems are too tough and too bitter to eat raw. 

 

Nutrition

Calories: 243kcal | Carbohydrates: 12g | Protein: 13g | Fat: 17g | Saturated Fat: 5g | Cholesterol: 206mg | Sodium: 325mg | Potassium: 476mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 7g | Vitamin A: 5926IU | Vitamin C: 18mg | Calcium: 147mg | Iron: 3mg

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"I'm strong to the finich, cause I eats me spinach. I'm Popeye the Sailer Man."

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