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Green Salad · American-inspired

Bibb and Radish Salad with Warm Bacon Dressing

Tender Bibb lettuce and thinly sliced radishes under a hot bacon, shallot, and red wine vinegar dressing that is made at the last minute and poured on just before serving.

Prep
15 min
Cook
15 min
Total
30 min
Servings
4 (as a side salad; works as a light lunch for two with bread)

For the salad

  • 2 small heads (about 250 g/9 oz) Bibb lettuce, leaves separated, washed, dried well, and torn into large pieces
  • 5 oz / 150g radishes, tops trimmed, sliced as thin as you can

For the warm bacon dressing

  • 4 oz / 115g thick-cut bacon, cut crosswise into 1 cm (½ in) pieces
  • 1 to 2 tsp, only if the bacon leaves less than 2 tbsp fat olive oil (optional)
  • 1 small shallot, finely diced
  • 3 tbsp / 45ml red wine vinegar
  • 1 tsp / 5g Dijon mustard
  • 1 tsp / 7g honey
  • freshly ground, to taste black pepper
  • a pinch, to taste fine sea salt
  1. Put the lettuce and radishes in a large serving bowl or on a platter, and set it next to the stove. Everything else happens quickly.
  2. Put the bacon in a cold, wide skillet and set it over medium-low heat. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring now and then, until the pieces are browned and crisp. Lift them out with a slotted spoon onto a paper towel.
  3. Pour off the fat until about 2 tbsp (30 ml) is left in the pan. If there's less, top it up with the olive oil. Return the pan to medium heat, add the shallot, and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, until soft but not browned.
  4. Take the pan off the heat. Add the vinegar, mustard, and honey, and stir, scraping up the browned bits. Be careful, because the vinegar will spit. Return to the heat for 30 seconds, just to warm through. Add the pepper, then taste and add a pinch of salt only if you need it, since the bacon is salty.
  5. Pour the hot dressing over the lettuce and radishes and toss once or twice, only until the leaves are coated. Scatter over the bacon and serve right away.

How hot the dressing is, and how late it goes on, decides whether this salad works. Pour it over Bibb lettuce that's been sitting, or toss it for too long, and you have a bowl of warm, limp leaves. Pour it on at the very last minute and toss twice, and the leaves soften at the edges but still have their shape. The radishes are there to push back against all of that softness.

The dressing is a pan sauce

It's built in the skillet the bacon cooked in. Start the bacon in a cold pan over medium-low heat and let it cook slowly. Leave about two tablespoons of that fat in the pan, and soften the shallot in it. Then comes the vinegar, off the heat, with mustard and a little honey.

The balance matters. Warm fat and salty bacon need plenty of acid, which is why the vinegar is three tablespoons against two of fat. The mustard holds the two together, and the honey rounds off the sharpness without making the dressing sweet. If it tastes sharp, a little more honey is better than less vinegar.

Assembly order

Everything else goes in the bowl before the pan goes on the stove, because the dressing is only good hot. Pour it over, toss once or twice, scatter the bacon on top so it stays crisp, and serve it. Leave it for five minutes and the lettuce will have gone soft. The Spinach, Cranberry, Pine Nut and Feta Salad follows the same last-minute rule with a cold vinaigrette.

What's essential and what isn't

The Bibb lettuce is the point. Its leaves are soft and thin, and they go tender in seconds under a hot dressing. Thinly sliced radish gives the crunch, and it's more than a garnish. Without it, the salad is soft all the way through. The shallot is worth keeping, because it cooks into the dressing and gives it body. You can leave out the olive oil, as long as the bacon leaves enough fat.

What to swap

Other butter lettuces work the same way. Romaine will hold its crunch better, but it won't give you the same delicate salad. Cider vinegar is a fine swap for red wine vinegar.

Leftovers

Don't plan on them. A dressed Bibb salad doesn't keep, and the dressing is a last-minute thing. If you're prepping ahead, prep the parts separately and cook the dressing when you're ready to eat.