Wilted Spinach Salad with Bacon Dressing

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Wilted Spinach Salad with Bacon Dressing

Warm vinaigrette wilts baby spinach leaves until they are perfectly tender and delicious. Topped with crispy bacon, hard-boiled eggs, almonds, feta, and dried cranberries, this is a great recipe for filling lunches or a decedent side dish.

Course Salad

Cuisine American Classic

Prep Time 20

Cook Time 30

Total Time 50

Servings

Calories 274kcal

Author Diana Reis

Ingredients

Wilted Spinach Salad

8 C Baby Spinach
4 Hard-boiled Eggs peeled, halved
3 Pieces Bacon cooked and drained
¼ Cup Red Onion thinly sliced
¼ Cup Feta Cheese crumbled
¼ Cup Almonds sliced or chopped
¼ Cup Dried Cranberries
Salt and Pepper to taste

Warm Bacon Dressing

3 Tablspoons Bacon Grease reserved
2 Tablespoons Red Wine Vinegar
2 Cloves Garlic minced

Instructions

To make this salad, the first step is to make sure you have all of your ingredients washed, chopped, and prepped in the way they will go on the salad.
Slice your red onion. Measure out your dried cranberries, sliced almonds, and feta cheese and set ingredients aside.
Hard boiled eggs will need to be prepared ahead of time or purchased already cooked. Here are some great tips for perfect hardboiled eggs from …
Heat a small skillet on medium-high heat.
Slice the bacon strips into small ½ inch pieces and add to the pan. Cook bacon until all of the pieces are well browned and crispy.
Using a slotted spoon, remove the cooked bacon and place on a plate lined with paper towels. Reserve the bacon grease in the pan to make warm bacon dressing.
Make the Warm Bacon Dressing. Warm the reserved bacon drippings on low heat until is is hot, but not spitting.
Then, add minced garlic and red vinegar to the hot bacon drippings. Stir vinegar and garlic until the warm dressing is combined and aromatic. 30 seconds to 1 minute.
Measure cleaned spinach into a large bowl.
Pour vinaigrette over spinach leaves and toss until the leaves are coated and shiny with a bright green color. The spinach should wilt ever so slightly and have a nice sheen.
Next, add chopped almonds, cranberries, feta cheese, and sliced red onions to the salad bowl and toss with the wilted spinach mixture.
For a special presentation, add crisp bacon and hard boiled eggs sliced in half to the top of the salad as it is served.
If you don’t need to make it fancy, simply add chopped eggs and bacon along with the other toppings.

Notes

What does it mean to wilt spinach?

Wilting spinach is any kind of process that heats the spinach just enough for it to start to shrink and tenderize, but doesn’t heat it long enough to completely break it down. This can be done by a variety of methods.

For our purposes, we are using warm bacon dressing poured over raw spinach. The hot dressing heats the leaves just enough to turn them bright green, and tenderizes them slightly making them sweeter and more pleasant to eat.

Diana's Tips for Success

This salad is a great way to use hard boiled eggs made earlier in the week.
Fully cooled eggs are easier to peel, so it is best to do this step a while before making the actual spinach salad.
Here are some great tips for Perfect Hardboiled Eggs from TheForkedSpoon.com
Immature spinach leaves are slightly sweeter than mature leaves and much more tender. Mature spinach can be used, but be sure to remove the bitter stems.
To make sure all of the spinach leaves are wilted and well coated, use tongs and toss the leaves really well. Turn the leaves in the dressing over and over again until you can see that each leaf is bright green and shiny with dressing.
I like to add lots of fresh cracked pepper to finish off this salad. Don’t add salt until everything is mixed together. The bacon and cheese are pretty salty. I find that there is enough salt that I don’t need to add more, but you can season it to your taste.

Nutrition