Summer’s last hurrah involves fresh, locally-grown, in-season tomatoes in a BLT salad. It’s not as though you can’t continue to get them through early fall, but state and federal laws require me to turn my attention to pumpkin spice no later than Labor Day.
This salad is beyond restaurant-worthy. It’s rave-worthy.
Ingredients
- For the dressing:
Flesh from 1 avocado
1 package (1½ oz.) fresh basil, stems discarded
1 small garlic clove, peeled
Juice of 2 limes
3 Tbs red wine vinegar
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper, to taste
- For the salad:
2 large, best-quality, in-season tomatoes
1 lb. thick-cut bacon
11 oz. day-old artisan bread, cut into large, bite-sized cubes (5 generous cups of cubes)
1-2 Tbs olive oil
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 head of red leaf lettuce
1/2 pint yellow cherry tomatoes, sliced in half, optional
1 large avocado
Directions
- Make the dressing:
- Place the avocado, basil, garlic, lime juice, and vinegar into the bowl of a food processor. Blitz until well combined. With the machine running, drizzle in the oil in the slowest steady stream you can produce. Season to taste.
- Make the salad:
- Cut out the core of each tomato. Slice both tomatoes in half. Cut each half into four wedges. Cut each wedge in half to create large tomato chunks. Place them on a plate lined with several sheets of paper towels. Set aside.
- Cut the bacon into 1-inch pieces. Place them in a cold, cast-iron pan. Turn the heat to medium (setting 4 of 9) and cook, stirring occasionally, until crisp, 15 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to move the bacon to a paper-towel-lined plate. Repurpose the rendered fat.
- Pre-heat the oven to 350°F and place the rack in the upper third. Spread the cubes into a rimmed baking sheet. Toss with oil. Bake for 15 minutes, tossing with two pancake flippers every 5 minutes. Season to taste.
- Cut the lettuce into large, bite-sized pieces. Place it into a large mixing bowl. Add the tomato, bacon, croutons, (and cherry tomatoes).
- Cut the avocado in half, remove the seed, scoop out the flesh, and cut the flesh into large, bite-sized chunks. If the avocado is firm, add it to the mixing bowl. If it’s soft, set it aside.
- Add a large spoonful of dressing to the salad and toss. Add more dressing, as needed, as you continue to toss. The salad should be very lightly dressed; don’t go overboard. Expect to have a lot of dressing left over. (If you’ve set aside the avocado, add it now and toss very gently.) Plate into 4 large bowls. Dust with pepper.
Notes
- This is perfect for the remains of an uncut loaf of artisan bread that has become dry. If you’re using a fresh loaf, cut the cubes and then lay them out a baking sheet, uncovered, for a day, tossing now and then, until they’ve dried out. Many people discard the bread’s crust before making the cubes; I don’t mind leaving them on.
- You can make plain croutons with simple olive oil, or you can use a flavored oil, or you can add a dusting of your favorite herbs to the cubes as you toss them with an unflavored oil.
- If the avocado is soft, it will disintegrate into the dressing as you toss. With other types of dressing, this can be a good thing in as much as it can, for instance, make a vinaigrette seem creamy. Because this dressing is already made of avocado, you want the chunks to remain intact.
If you regularly read my posts, you may remember that I like to categorize my recipes as to whether or not they’re restaurant-worthy. This one goes beyond that. Not only is this salad as good as any I’ve ever been served, if I were served it in a restaurant, I’d rave about it and certainly return to have it again and again. It’s that good. Surely it’s the use of local, late-summer tomatoes that makes this salad so good, but it’s also the dressing.
Social Learning
The dressing’s really pretty interesting. It’s decidedly sharp, which is why I suggest using it sparingly. It’s easy to add too much. If you dress the salad just enough but not too much, the basil does what only basil can do to a ripe tomato, which is to turn it into something glorious. I assumed that this would be a very temporary dressing. Even though the dressing does contain elements that should slow the browning process of an avocado, I didn’t expect it to last more than a day. It lasted more than two weeks! Perhaps it became an almost-imperceptible shade darker – but I may have been imagining it. It stayed vibrant and delicious, which gave me plenty of time to experiment with it and discover that, for instance, it’s a fantastic substitute for mayo on a sandwich.
This salad is OK leftover, but it’s not as spectacular as it is same-day. Over time, the croutons (stored separately, in an air-tight container) become tougher, the cut veggies lose their freshness and vibrancy. The bacon isn’t all that much fun when refrigerator-cold.
You can also serve this salad in a composed fashion, with whole strips of bacon, tomatoes in slices, and dressing drizzled on top.
BLT Salad with Avocado Basil Dressing
Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man! unless otherwise credited. This content was not solicited by anyone, nor was it written in exchange for anything. Thank you, Kesor. Thanks, Prosper Circle. References: The Editors of Martha Stewart Living, “Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato Salad.” In Martha Stewart’s Cooking School: The Original Classics. (New York, NY: Clarkson Potter, 2007), 129. Finer Things.
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Ha! I just looked through my printed fall recipes I’ve collected online! Yes, I organize by season. Doesn’t everybody?!! I love this recipe. And I am, like you, enjoying the gorgeous tomatoes right now. Your dressing is wonderful. Great job!
Chef Mimi recently posted…Jambon Persillé
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In my neck of the woods, we’d call this delicious salad a BLAT Salad!
sippitysup recently posted…Catalan Cod Stew with Pimentón, Peppers, and Tomatoes
Yes, I suppose I should, too!
Herby avocado dressing is a staple in our home. This is a wonderfully delicious and crunchy salad.
angiesrecipes recently posted…Chicharrones Colombian Fried Pork Belly
Good choice, Angie. The dressing is great!
No pumpkin spice for me until official fall 🙂
But please pass me this plate. The salad looks and sounds splendid. It’s still summery enough (light and fresh), but there’s also fall vibes as it’s comforting and cozy – perfect transition salad from summer to fall!
Ben | Havocinthekitchen recently posted…Maple Blueberry Crêpes
Thanks, Ben! I hadn’t thought of it that way!
I do love a good BLT, Jeff, and yet I’ve never thought to make it into a salad – thanks for the inspiration! I love locally grown produce (or even homegrown, if you’re so inclined) and in season is always the best. Enjoy those ‘matoes while you can! Here in Australia, we’re slowing cruising into spring – so excited!
Katerina recently posted…Easy fish curry [mild, kid-friendly]
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This BLT salad is a spin off the classic BLT sandwich and it’s delicious and easy to make and the avocado basil dressing is so good you’ll want to put it on everything. If you want to make this salad gluten-free, just use the croutons from this recipe and leave out the bacon.
ShunCy recently posted…How to grow kumquat
Oh, yum! This looks great — although I’ll probably cheat and eat in throughout September. With an appropriate pumpkin spice dessert, of course. 🙂
John / Kitchen Riffs recently posted…The Picon Punch Cocktail
Sounds delicious!
Great idea! I always enjoy taking familiar food items like a BLT and rearranging them in novel ways. Like turning a sandwich into a salad. And since BLT is one of my favorite sandwiches, I bet I’d enjoy it in salad form. And come to think of it, isn’t the sandwich itself basically a kind of salad in sandwich form? Anyway… sound delicious!
Frank recently posted…Cremolata di pesche (Peach Cremolata)
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This salad is differently being made, I love everything about it. BTW, your comment about having to turn your attention to pumpkin spice no later than Labor Day gave me a real chuckle.
Karen (Back Road Journal) recently posted…Spaghetti Alla Puttanesca, An Italian Classic
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Terrific salad, Jeff. I always ask for avocado on my BLT, so this makes perfect sense. I’m totally impressed that neither the avocado nor the basil blackened after the first night. Very good to know.
I’m telling you, that was weird. I fully expected it to turn brown. I went so far as to wonder if they’re breeding avocados that are less prone to oxidation.
Jeff, salads are very much a part of my diet these days so this one fits well. The bacon might have to be omitted or replaced with lean ham or chicken, but I know that dressing will make up for the prohibited bacon. FYI, life without bacon is a drag, but one must do what one must.
Yeah, that would be a tough one. I do love the flavor of lean ham that’s been sauteed to the point of browning, though. That’d be a great substitute. Or, you might just focus on the dressing. It’d be good on any kind of green salad. I hope you’re well on the mend, Ron!
We always have avocados at home but I’ve never made dressing with them! It’s interesting that you use avocado and olive oil. I generally like to pan fry my croutons in olive oil, soooo good.
Eva Taylor recently posted…Zucchini Rösti
Pan-frying croutons sounds like a great idea! The avocado and olive oil idea is Martha Stewart’s, but it made sense to me. I often use vinaigrettes, and also often toss a cubed avocado into a green salad. If you toss the salad vigorously, as I like to do, the avocado disintigrates into the dressing and makes a nice texture.
Thanks for the clarification, I agree that the avocado makes a beautiful, creamy texture. I am going to use your dressing recipe for some roasted garlic cauliflower gnocchi tonight, I’m really looking forward to the flavours.
Eva Taylor recently posted…Cantaloupe Salsa
Oh good Lord, that’s going to be interesting. You might need to tone down its vibrancy a bit, but I’d be so curious to know if you wind up with something that you like.
Ah, I must have missed this recipe when we were traveling last week – so glad it popped up on the bottom of the screen! I do love a BLT, so of course I would love it in salad form. However, I’m super intrigued by that avocado basil dressing – using it in sandwich form sounds amazing. In fact, I wonder if you could take it further and use it in potato salad?
David @ Spiced recently posted…Easy Chicken Fried Rice
It’d be a very different kind of potato salad, that’s for sure. The dressing’s pretty intensely flavored. Maybe a mixture of the basil dressing, and Greek yogurt.
I’d rave about this if I had it in a restaurant, too. That dressing puts it over the top! And I’m always in for a salad that works as an entrée. 🙂 ~Valentina
Valentina recently posted…Chocolate Crème Anglaise with Frangelico
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Late season tomatoes are the only thing that has me hanging on to summer. I’m a fall girl at heart, but those tomatoes are something else. The salad sounds divine, definitely something I would also order frequently in a restaurant.
Theresa recently posted…Tuscan Tomato and Bread Soup
🙂
A BLT salad – what a great idea! And even better with that avocado dressing. YUM!
mjskitchen recently posted…Green Chile Cheese Cornbread Pancakes
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What a great salad, you do feel like you are eating a BLT! The avocado gives this salad a nice touch. Fresh basil in the dressing was delicious. I skipped the red leaf lettuce because I was being lazy but it would have made my salad even better. Thanks for sharing the recipe!