Wedge salad is a glorious combination of iceberg lettuce, creamy blue cheese dressing, tomatoes…and bacon! Here’s the only recipe you’ll ever need.
With all the cooking that I do, you wouldn’t think the Southern husband and I would ever have the chance to go out to eat, but Oh Yes We Do. Every Friday night is pizza night, and every Saturday night we treat ourselves to one of our pretty long list of favorite restaurants.
And I’ve noticed a certain pattern over the years…while we try hard to be adventurous in our menu-ordering, there are a few menu items that we can’t resist when they appear on a menu. For me it is moules frites (can’t get enough of ’em!).
With the Southern husband, it’s wedge salad. And after he ordered it for the 235,674th time, I thought hey – maybe I should figure out my own recipe for it!
Wedge salad is great, because it is a real crowd-pleaser with its combination of tomatoes, bacon and creamy blue cheese dressing, all drizzled over a dramatic wedge of iceberg lettuce. And equally wonderful is the fact that as salads go, it really doesn’t get too much easier.
Here’s how you make easy classic wedge salad!
You can get 4 nice wedges out of a normal sized head of iceberg – just nick the core out of the end and peel the scruffy looking leaves off the outside.
The dressing can be stirred up in two shakes…I like a combo of sour cream, buttermilk, mayo and blue cheese, thinned with a little milk until it is still thick but also pourable.
Once you have your lovely dressing, all that’s left is the assembly, which you will want to do right before serving time. Place a wedge on each plate. Drizzle a generous amount of dressing on top – generous being the key word here!
Now scatter the following over and around the wedge: halved cherry tomatoes, chives, fresh ground pepper, blue cheese crumbles and cooked bite-sized pieces of bacon.
Most wedge salads use regular bacon and that is perfectly fine for this one too, but if you want your wedge salad to ascend to all new heights, try it with the candied bacon I wrote about earlier this week. Mmmm, mmm, mmmmmmmm.
Now all I need to do is get the Southern husband to create a moules frites recipe for me and we may never have to leave the house again.
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Wedge Salad!
Prep Time: 10 minutes- Total Time: 10 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
- Category: Side Dish
- Method: No Cook
- Cuisine: American
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Wedge salad is a glorious combination of iceberg lettuce, creamy blue cheese dressing, tomatoes…and bacon! Here’s the only recipe you’ll ever need.
Ingredients
For The Salad
- 1 head iceberg lettuce
- 4 sliced bacon, cooked and torn into bite-sized pieces
- 1 pint cherry tomatoes, cut in halves
- Fresh chopped chives for garnish
- Fresh ground pepper for garnish
- Blue cheese crumbles for garnish
For The Dressing
- 2 tablespoons sour cream
- 2 tablespoons buttermilk
- 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
- 2 ounces crumbled blue cheese
- Milk for thinning as needed
Instructions
- Make the dressing by combining all the dressing ingredients except for the milk and stirring with a fork until well combined (some chunks of blue cheese are good – it shouldn’t be totally smooth). Thin it with just enough milk that it is still thick but pourable.
- Peel the outside 1 or 2 leaves off of the lettuce and cut it into quarters lengthwise (from core to top) so you have 4 wedges. Carefully cut the core part out of the end of each wedge, and place each wedge on a plate.
- Generously drizzle the dressing on top of each wedge. Divide the tomatoes and bacon around each wedge. Sprinkle each with chives and a grinding of pepper, and scatter a few cheese crumbles on and around each wedge. Serve at once.
I will be anxious to try your blue cheese dressing :-)
We enjoy wedge salad and I rarely buy iceberg.
We have come to enjoy Romaine cut lengthwise.
We each eat half as I find smaller organic Romaine.
If it is a larger head, then saving some of the outside leaves
for another time, and splitting more of the heart portion works well.
Wedge salads, when done right, always surprise me how pretty they can be!
They ARE extremely festive!
I had a persnickety mother – to her, wedge salads were “lazy” because they were easy. I have no such compunctions! However, I do have a bit of a “thing” about blue cheese. So I substitute feta crumbles and homemade ranch and enjoy anyway!
I love the lazy part of them – your mama was right! And feta sounds like a nice spin on them. :)
I love wedge salad! We get so snobbish about baby lettuces and bitter greens that we forget how cool, crunchy and refreshing a wedge of Iceberg is. Just a perfect foil for a creamy dressing — regular summer rotation for an antidote to too much heat. ;)
I know! Show that iceberg some love. :)
This looks super good and refreshing!
Thanks nessa! It is a nice refreshing little salad, isn’t it?
Oh this looks wonderful! I really love a good wedge salad :)
It just hits the spot sometimes. :)
I just happened upon this, and it looks yummy. I think I will make a nice fancy meal for my family, and make this salad. My mother in law makes her own delicious blue cheese dressing, and she adds a little fresh lemon juice. I want to say she puts a drop or two of worcestershire sauce in, too, but don’t quote me on that one. I am amazed at how fond of fancy meals men really are, even my own southern hubs.
My Southern husband is so happy with this salad all by itself for supper now and then…and that blue cheese dressing recipe sounds very tempting! :)