Double Bacon Caesar

I’ve said it a million times, and I’ll say it again, I am not a fan of salad, unless it’s coated and covered in tasty treats and dressing. The “Paleo” part of me feels guilty about this, as it seems like an integral meal that’s part of everyone’s Paleo diet, except mine (and Brandon’s by default). But then I read a blog post from this girl (master of the CrossFit universe), and saw that we share the same view about salad. So obviously I drew the super scientific conclusion that: not liking salad makes you really good at CrossFit. So from this point forward, not only do I feel completely justified, I have vowed to start un-liking salad even more, so I can be just as good at CrossFit as Juli.

Ingredients

For the Salad

  • 2 heads of romaine lettuce
  • Parmesan cheese
  • 1 lb chicken
  • 1/2 – 3/4 lb bacon

For the Dressing

  • 1/2 c bacon fat, liquid but cooled
  • 1 egg yolk
  • ½ lemon, juiced
  • 1 garlic clove, finely grated
  • handful finely grated Parmesan cheese
  • 1 t worcestershire sauce
  • ¼ t anchovy paste or ½ anchovy (NOT ½ a can/tin)
  • s & p

Method

For the Salad

It doesn’t really matter how much of any of this stuff you put into a bowl, so you don’t need to follow the amounts or anything, I’m just letting you know what we did.

What I do care about is the bacon. We want to get out around 1/2 cup of fat for the dressing and still have some left over to cook the chicken in.

So mainly concern yourself with: browning the bacon and then sauteing the chicken.

Add all that stuff into the salad, along with whatever else you’d like.

The dressing is the important part. Onward…

For the Dressing

This is a no stressing dressing! Combine all the ingredients into a jar with a screw top lid. Shake until everything looks creamy. Taste and make sure it doesn’t need any adjustments. Done.

A note about this dressing: Because bacon fat is mostly saturated, it will solidify at room temp and in the fridge. It’s best to drizzle the dressing only on the portion of salad you’re eating…not on the whole thing, unless you plan to eat it all in one sitting. Store the dressing in the fridge and reheat it in the microwave for a few seconds to get it nice and fluid again.

And finally…We’ve also made a bacon fat honey mustard. It’s just a delicious.

 


Comments

20 responses to “Double Bacon Caesar”

  1. Love this idea! I love all things bacon, and as a fellow paleo eater, also freaking hate salad, unless it is caesar salad. I haven’t seen a paleo-fied caesar before and this looks great! I may have to try it this weekend 🙂

    I just really don’t get salad. Like I love my greens sauteed or in smoothies, but cold? on a plate? I’m just not into it– at all.

  2. I dont like salad either! woot! But… sigh.. I dont like anchovy either! Dang! I guess it will still taste yummy right.. if I skip the anchovy? Do we have a bacon grease Blue cheese version? hehehehehe!

    1. have you ever tried rinsing your anchovies? it really does take out the ‘fish bait’ smell/taste that turns off most people. i think i can definitely make up a blue cheese/bacon variation. great idea!

  3. I had given up on caesar salad, although it’s one of my favorites, because bottled dressing really isn’t paleo. But this solves that problem AND tells me what to do with the bacon fat I’ve been accumulating from saving the drippings from my morning nosh. You are a goddess. 🙂

    1. mindy, i believe we are all bacon goddesses.

  4. this is also a very lovely and bacony salad: http://www.marthastewart.com/315882/blt-salad-with-buttermilk-dressing
    It’s pretty easy to paleo-up. I think I replaced the baguette with goat cheese and messed around with the dressing. Obviously I eat dairy (because it’s delicious).

    1. man, i bet that would be so amazing with goat cheese. i bet you could whip up a dressing using a homemade mayo with some vinegar and add goat cheese to that.

  5. I love the idea of using bacon fat instead of oil. I posted a similar caesar dressing recipe a couple weeks ago, but I use olive oil: http://www.forgottendomesticarts.com/delicious-real-caesar-salad-dressing-primal/

  6. This is so yummy! I just made it for dinner. My husband loves-loves-loves salad, but to me salad is more of a side than a meal. THIS salad is a meal. We topped ours with leftover salmon patties instead of chicken… pretty darn good.

  7. HA! You guys are awesome! My roommate just showed me this shout out and I just talked about you guys in my post today!! I like you guys. You’re cool.

  8. I love this salad. I’ve made it twice and I’m making it again today for a friend for lunch. I use leftover roasted chicken.
    It’s funny reading the posts about hating anchovies. I put anchovy paste in lots of recipes and nobody ever knows. They give food a balanced saltiness, umami (?) I think it’s called. If you taste a fishy taste either your anchovies have gone bad or you’ve added too much to your recipe.
    Thanks for the recipe!

    1. i totally agree karen. glad you enjoy, thanks!

  9. I made this yesterday, and again today. Really wonderful! I got fresh applewood bacon from a local farmer, absolutely heavenly. When I made the dressing, I didn’t have anchovies or worcestershire sauce, so I made it with a tbsp of Maggi seasoning. I was really amazed it actually tasted liked I had both ingredients in there. This is now my go to salad!

    1. glad you enjoyed chris, thanks!

      had to look up that maggi stuff…never heard of it. contains wheat/gluten…just in case you didn’t know.

  10. I made several of your recipes this week – Double Bacon Caesar, curry chicken salad, pad thai – and they were all AMAZING! Can’t wait to try the grilled prosciutto peaches and mango salmon this weekend! And with all the zucchini coming out of the garden right now, we’ll be eating lots more pad thai. Brilliant idea. Thanks so much for sharing your recipes with us!!!

    Eve

  11. Sara Hall

    Do you think I could use olive oil or avocado oil (which would you suggest) instead of bacon fat? Or maybe a mixture with the bacon fat?? I just want to be able to take this to work and not have to worry about heating it up.

  12. […] Bacon & Chicken Caesar Salad adapted from Health-Bent […]

  13. That sounds good, but sometimes I get tired of the bacon, and I will pass on the anchovy. I just buy my bacon grease. You can buy it on amazon.com. I actually order it from the site now. It’s called hot belly bacon grease. Is it ok if I just use that instead of the bacon? It looks very tasty!

  14. […] (primalpalate.com) – Herb Roasted Whole Chicken (thepioneerwoman.com) – Double Bacon Caesar Salad (health-bent.com) – Blue Cheese Cole Slaw (foodnetwork.com) – Cream of Tomato Soup (nomnompaleo.com) – Sunday […]

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