Bacon, caramelized onions and sauteed mushrooms are among my favorite foods and when I saw a spinach salad on The Pioneer Woman that contained all three it, immediately made it to my meal plan. This salad is just packed with flavour! Not allowing any flavour to go to waste this salad starts by cooking the bacon in a pan and then setting it aside, reserving some of the bacon grease. The remaining bacon grease is then used to caramelize the onions and finally to saute the mushrooms. After cooking everything in that one pan it is just covered with those caramelized brown bits of flavour and they are recovered by making the dressing like a simple pan sauce where the pan is deglazed with the dressing’s vinegar and then the reserved bacon grease is used as the dressing’s oil component. As if this salad were not already flavourful enough, I could not resist adding some mellow creamy blue cheese. This salad would make a great side dish or you can easily add a hard boiled egg and turn it into a light meal.
Option: Use easy ramen eggs instead of regular hard boiled eggs!
Spinach Salad with Bacon, Caramelized Onions, Mushrooms and Blue Cheese in a Bacon Pan Sauce Dressing Topped with a Hard Boiled Egg
ingredients
- 2 eggs
- 4 slices bacon (cut into 1 inch slices)
- 1 cup red onion (sliced)
- 4 ounces mushrooms (sliced)
- 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon dijon mustard
- 1 small clove garlic (grated)
- salt and pepper to taste
- 4 ounces baby spinach
- 1/4 cup mild blue cheese (crumbled)
directions
- Cover the eggs in water, bring to a boil, turn off the heat, cover and let sit for 7 minutes.
- Transfer the eggs to cold water and let cool enough to hold.
- Remove the shells from the eggs and slice.
- Meanwhile, cook the bacon in a pan and set aside reserving 2 tablespoons of bacon grease.
- Caramelize the onions in the remaining bacon grease and set aside.
- Caramelize the mushrooms in the remaining bacon grease and set aside.
- Add the vinegar to the pan and deglaze it.
- Add the reserved bacon grease, sugar, mustard, garlic and season with salt and pepper and remove from heat.
- Assemble salad and toss with dressing.
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All I can say is "WOW"!!!
WOWZER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I WILL MAKE THIS……..
THIS LOOKS AMAZING !!!!!!!!
I think I would prefer it without eggs, but Wow, this looks amazing. Your photographs are great. I bet even unappetizing food would look great if you photographed it.
I think the only thing that would make this salad better would be roasted duck 🙂 mmm…. looks great!
That sounds incredible! Looks like I know what to make for dinner tomorrow 🙂
I love salads with bacon and hard-boiled egg
Yup I have already eaten dinner but I could eat this! Looks amazing. Great blog, by the way – I cant believe it's taken me this long to find it!
My spinach salad from last night did not look nearly as good as this….I did not even take a picture!!!!
This is my kind of spinach salad. And only pan to clean, I'm all over it!
This does look amazing. I can actually see keeping the dressing hot, so it lightly wilts the spinach when you pour it over. Yum.
Truly delicious. The ultimate salad!
If only I lived closer to you, I'd be at your place for dinner almost everyday.
That sounds super tasty! But also like all the bacon grease would defeat the reason for eating a salad. lol…
Those mushrooms look really tasty; the bacon doesn't hurt either 😉
kevin this salad has my name all over it! i love the variety of flavors and how each one complements the other. brilliant!
This meal looks so tasty, colorful, and healthy! its a winner..
Oh wow that looks beautiful! What a great looking dish!
That looks like the Easter salads that we used to eat at my grandparents… So tasty!
Cheers,
Rosa
I'm pretty sure that PW is a genius. I am also pretty sure that you just won the prize for longest recipe name ever! Haha :p
Can't go wrong with bacon. Ever.
I have all of the ingredients here Kevin and jusy love a delicious spinach salad.
Kevin, a beautifully composed salad, right down to the perfectly hard-boiled eggs.
This salad looks GORGEOUS!
I like evrything on this salad except the mushrooms.
Everything's better with bacon. And mushrooms. And onions. This salad's a winner!
I love spinach salad. I'll have to make it – back to the store I go!
wowowowow! love it!
Wonderful photos – and recipes. So glad I found you! I'm now following so I don't miss anything……
Susan
Kevin, this is one gorgeous looking salad. I love this.
Oh my, I want to eat this salad immediately. You have the BEST recipes!
This has to be the most decadent salad ever and I love it! However, I can't help but wonder how my next blood test would turn out if I ate this the night before…. heart attack warning?! Oh Yeah! It would be so worth it!
I made this for lunch yesterday. Then I made it for dinner. Its so amazing. I just love it! I once ate a salad that I later had dreams about, I'll bet this one does that too!
Thanks Kevin!
Looks good!!
Love the look of this salad. Now this is a REAL salad, unlike the bland salad leaves and sliced tomato and cucumber mumbo jumbo restaurants serve here so often!
Just stumbled onto your website today, when I was looking for a recipe for a BLT sandwich. Thanks to you I've just made a good BLT sandwich and this salad!!! I'm usually a mess in the kitchen and I'm so happy that I managed to make something that tasted good. I will definitely look for more of your recipes 🙂
Just stumbled onto your website today, when I was looking for a recipe for a BLT sandwich. Thanks to you I've just made a good BLT sandwich and this salad!!! I'm usually a mess in the kitchen and I'm so happy that I managed to make something that tasted good. I will definitely look for more of your recipes 🙂
Perfect! The bacon pan sauce sounds positively mouth-watering.
Oh, that looks wonderful. I am a huge fan of salads using spinach as a base – not only tastier but also more nutritious than lettuce!
I can almost smell this one it looks so delicious! I am going to have to figure out a light version of this one.
I bookmarked your salad from Tastespotting and decided to try it out tonight. I have to say, this is definitely restaurant quality! I loved it. BF opted out of the dressing (he's a die hard French guy) and no onions for him either…though I made mine exactly. It was delicious. Paired it with a shrimp cocktail. Great dinner, thanks!
made it last weekend and OMG it was amazing 🙂
I made this salad (sans the egg) for a Christmas dinner party that my husband and I threw this past weekend, and it was a huge success.
We paired it with a formal dinner of baked brie, potato leek soup, roasted goose, roasted brussel sprouts with bacon, and a wild rice salad with chestnuts, mushrooms and bacon.
I am about to like spinach salad. A great recipe for the day. I am starting to think that I will prepare this one at home. This is an amazing recipe and would be very helpful for a business venture.
Spinach Salad is one of my alltime favourite salads. There was restaurant that I used to go to years ago at the Eaton Centre in T.O called Mr. Greenjeans and I would always order thier spinach salad. I don't think that restaurant exist anymore 🙁 but just looking at this salad reminded me of that place. I will definately be making this salad. thanks for sharing.
This salad looks amazing! I have to make this soon.