Sunday Spotlight Recipes- Spring Salad with Bacon-Homemade Poppy Seed Dressing

This salad may look ordinary but it doesn’t taste that way.  It’s a crowd pleas-er, I got the recipe from our church potluck and of course tweaked it a bit and changed the name.  All the ladies at church were asking who made that salad and how do we get the recipe. My friend Deb got it from her daughter, who got it from her mother-in-law… that’s a few people so I’m sure it’s been re-worked a time or two.  I enjoy all the elements to this salad when I first tasted it I loved the crunch along with the chewiness (dried cranberries) plus the sweet but tart, all at the same time.  If you do make this salad and wanted to leave something out don’t let it be the bacon, Parmesan cheese, nuts or the homemade dressing.  You can play with the other ingredients a little and get the same delicious salad.  Put this salad on your list to try soon, I promise it won’t let you down.

Sunday Spotlight Recipes- Spring Salad with Bacon-Homemade Poppy Seed Dressing

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Ingredients:
2 cups fresh spinach leaves or 1 head of butter lettuce
1 large head of romaine lettuce chopped
2 cups chopped fresh mushrooms
1 cup dried cranberries or lb. fresh strawberries or mandarin oranges
1/2 small red onion sliced thin or 1 bunch of green onions
1/2 cup shredded paremsean cheese
1/3 cup sugar glazed almonds or plain
1 lb. bacon cooked crisp reserving 2 T. of drippings

Poppy seed Dressing:
Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
2 tsp. dried mustard
2 tsp. kosher salt
2/3 cup red wine vinegar
3 T. grated onion
2 T. bacon drippings
1  cup of canola oil
3 tsp. poppy seeds

Directions:
Step 1: Clean vegetables and dry well, then slice to your liking. Put in a large salad bowl.
Step 2: Add all dressing ingredients to blender except oil and poppy seeds, blend for about 30 seconds making sure the sugar is dissolved.
Step 3: While blender is turned on slowly pour oil in until emulsified, then add poppy seeds pulse and turn off.
If you are serving all the salad at once pour desired amount of dressing directly on salad and toss well.  Refrigerate any left over dressing.

Tagged as: bacon, dressing, sunday-spotlight-recipes