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Spinach Salad...with fake bacon?

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I once had a fantastic spinach salad with a warm bacon dressing and was excited to try and make it tonight. I went to the farmer's market and got spinach, red onion, avocado...came home to search recipes...and realized I'd forgotten to buy bacon. Um, oops.

I do have some turkey bacon pieces in the fridge (the real kind, but the kind they sell for salads) and would like to satisfy my spinach salad craving...what do you think? The difficulty I'm having is that every recipe calls for using the warm bacon fat as the fat in the dressing, and I obviously won't have any. Should I just use olive oil? Does anyone have recipes that call for using pre-cooked bacon pieces that they can share? Alternatively, I'm perfectly happy to try a bacon-less recipe if it's not too sweet - I just want some warm dressing on spinach!

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  1. For me, there's no substituting for real bacon fat. Olive oil just isn't the same.
    Sounds like you intended to buy bacon, but forgot. My suggestion is don't compromise on flavor, simply delay your fantastic salad by one day, and swing by the grocer/butcher for the much needed real pork bacon. It will be well worth it.

    1. Just make a different spinach salad. Use the spinach, red onion and avocado and add either some diced fresh oranges or halved cherry tomato. Make a vinaigrette dressing with olive oil, lemon or lime juice, chopped cilantro salt, pepper and a dash cumin. Different salad - do the bacon one another time.

      1. Another salad recipe: Thinly slice red onions and let them sit in plain old white vinegar w/ a little sugar for an hour or two. Hard boil an egg or two and grate on the fine holes of a box grater. Thinly sliced button mushrooms. Toss spinach w/ mushrooms in your fave. vinaigrette (I like champagne...) Arrange red onions, egg and bacon (or facon..) on top after plating. Simple and yummy and no bacon fat needed. adam

        1. Reporting back for those curious - I went ahead with the salad sans bacon fat. Softened some garlic in olive oil over the stove, poured in cider vinegar on the heat and let it simmer a little, then put in the bacon pieces and let them 'stew' for a minute on very very low heat to try and get some of the flavor to transfer into the dressing. Poured warm dressing over baby spinach, sliced red onions, and a handful of pine nuts. Not quite the same thing, but delicious! I wouldn't do it with soy bacon, but it turned out fine!

          1 Reply
          1. re: thursday

            I have a small crock of bacon fat in the fridge at all times. Works in just such a situation.

          2. I've been using something called "fig infused vinegar" on spinach salad. I buy it at Publix. Make a vinaigrette with honey mustard, olive oil and the vinegar. It make a wonderful dressing on a salad with spinach, sliced mushrooms and dried cranberries.