Wilted Lettuce or Spinach Salad
When I married, my aunt Chrissy gave me a little recipe box with lots of her favorite recipes in it. Wilted Lettuce was one of them. I love looking at the recipes she gave me because she wrote them out by hand on little cards. It’s a treasure.
I never much liked this with lettuce, but I really love it with spinach, so I made some updates. The updates are for a vegetarian version. You can blend these two versions and use whatever ingredients you have and like.
Yield: 4 side salads or 2 meal salads
Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:
1 head leaf lettuce, washed and chopped
3‑4 green onions, sliced (tops too)
6 radishes, sliced (optional)
4 slices bacon
2 tbs vinegar
½ tsp coarse ground pepper
½ tsp salt
Instructions:
In a large bowl place the washed and chopped lettuce. Add onions and radishes. Fry bacon in a skillet. Remove and crumble over salad. Discard all but 3 tablespoons of bacon grease. Add vinegar, pepper and salt to bacon grease and bring to a boil. Pour hot dressing over lettuce and toss. If the lettuce has not wilted place it in the skillet for one minute and toss. Eat immediately.
Updates:
I sub spinach for the lettuce. I use the bagged baby spinach. The whole bag. I also don’t use bacon, so I put in the eggs for extra protein, and mushrooms for the meatiness. I add the smoked paprika to give the smokiness of the bacon.
3 eggs, hard boiled
1 sm purple onion, thinly sliced (but the green onions would be good here, too!)
If you have some radishes, they would be great here! I don’t usually have them on hand.
1 cups mushrooms, thinly sliced
1/4 cup olive oil
¼ cup apple cider vinegar
1 tsp smoked paprika
2 tsp soy sauce
2 tbs brown sugar
In a large salad bowl place spinach, eggs – diced, mushrooms, and onions. Put the olive oil into a small skillet and add the remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil, stirring, and pour over spinach mixture. Toss gently until all spinach is coated with dressing.