Having an easy, homemade salad dressing makes a great real food kitchen staple. Before I changed my diet the only salad dressing I would use was ranch. Typically ranch dressing in a bottle from the store (and when you make it yourself at home from the packet) contains a lot of non-real food/inflammatory ingredients. So I had to change my staple salad dressing and I ending up turning to a vinaigrette. What I love about vinaigrettes is that you can throw all of the ingredients in a mason jar, shake it up, and it ends up being very creamy. Sometimes it’s nice to make a dressing that’s extra creamy and to jazz it up a bit. For this Creamy Bacon Vinaigrette, I took a basic vinaigrette recipe and swapped out some of the olive oil for bacon fat to give it more flavor. I also add some mascarpone cheese and bacon pieces to make it extra creamy. I’ve been growing some summer vine spinach in my Tower Garden so I chopped it up, threw on some leftover grilled veggies, and topped it with the Creamy Bacon Vinaigrette. A perfect way to end the summer!
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Ingredients
- 4 strips of bacon
- 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 3 Tbsp bacon fat
- 1 garlic clove
- 2 1/2 Tbsp red wine vinegar or lemon juice
- 2 Tbsp of mascarpone cheese, softened (or coconut cream for dairy free)
Instructions
- Cook bacon until cooked through, reserving the bacon fat that renders. Once the bacon cools chop the strips into small pieces.
- In a mason jar, add the olive oil and 3 Tbsp of the reserve bacon fat.
- Using a microplan grater, grate the garlic clove into the jar.
- Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
- Add the vinegar or lemon juice to the jar.
- Place the lid on the mason jar and shake the ingredient together until creamy and well combined.
- In a medium bowl, add the mascarpone cheese and bacon pieces.
- Add the vinaigrette base and whisk until the mascarpone cheese is well combined.
