BLT Salad

with Basil Vinaigrette

Does one really need a recipe to make a BLT salad? At its most basic, the short answer is no. Toss some of your favorite lettuce in a bowl with cut up tomatoes, crispy bacon, croutons and a simple vinaigrette, and you’ve got a salad. What makes a great salad, though, is the way flavors get layered when taking care with each of the individual elements, and for that you need to have a few solid techniques and recipes to fall back on.

The love affair with my air-fryer continues here, and now that I’ve made bacon in it once, I’m hard-pressed to ever cook it another way. If you want perfectly flat pieces of bacon, then yes, baking in the oven is the way to go. Crispy is king for me when it comes to bacon, and in exchange, I’m content with rippled, curly pieces of bacon that cook in about 8 minutes in the air-fryer without splatter or turning on the oven.

With some thoughtful planning, there’s another bonus from cooking bacon in the air fryer. If you cook the bacon first, you’ll be rewarded with drippings collected in the bottom of the air-fryer basket that can be used to toss cubes of bread in to make croutons. I used this crouton recipe but swapped in the bacon drippings for the olive oil, and upped the amount of drippings to 1 tablespoon to ensure an extra bacon kick. Any remaining bacon drippings can be used to pop corn kernels for a bacon-scented popcorn.

Oh, I almost forgot to say I also cooked the croutons in the air-fryer, too. I never thought one appliance could prove it’s worth. Mine is a tiny Chefman from Target that was on sale for $29 when I bought it a few years ago. That model is only sold online now from what I’ve seen, and now costs $39 but I’d still say it’s worth the costs if you’ve been eager to buy an air-fryer but concerned about space or cost.

As for how to cook the croutons in the air-fryer, just toss all the ingredients together as directed in the recipe, and then cook them at 400ºF in the air fryer, pulling out the tray to toss the bread pieces occasionally, until crisp and golden, about 10 minutes.

For the dressing, I opted for a basil vinaigrette but you can also play up the tomato flavor, and use my recipe for roasted tomato vinaigrette. I compromised slightly on the lettuce in last week’s lunch, and used baby romaine since that’s what I had, and didn’t want to buy more produce since we were leaving for vacation a few days later. 

My first choice would’ve been arugula for the peppery kick it lends. Actually, my first choice would’ve been a combination of lettuces because why settle for one when you can have a variety of flavors and textures? This is what makes the salad at Via Carota genius but who usually has 5 kinds of salad sitting in the crisper bin? It’s certainly something to aspire to!

I bought a beautiful basket of heirloom cherry tomatoes that inspired this recipe and the summer tomato & ricotta tarts I wrote about last week. I love the mix of different varieties since tomatoes vary in their acidity levels. Now if only salad was sold in an artisanal blend instead of the sad packages I see in my local grocery store, then my produce problems would be solved. 

I hope you’re enjoying this last week of August. Contrary to the cloudy forecast on my phone, we’ve been gifted with some generous pockets of sunshine during our first couple of days on the Cape. Be well, and remember to be kind. —xo, j.

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