Wilted Lettuce Salad with Hot Bacon Dressing is a classic retro salad served with a Pennsylvania Dutch dressing.

Wilted Lettuce Salad with Hot Bacon Dressing

By Sue Lau | Palatable Pastime

Today is International Bacon Day! And for my part in it, I am blogging along with some of my friends, sharing some of our favorite bacon recipes.  And you must know we have more than a few, because bacon is such a favorite.

This particular recipe is two-fold   in that it is wilted lettuce salad and also for a prepared bacon dressing. I know many of you have a recipe handed down  from  the beginning of time for a salad of this type- usually just a bacon vinaigrette prepared with bacon grease,  vinegar,  sugar, salt and pepper. And that one is perfectly fine- you know one of my favorite green beans recipes is prepared that way, and  I have been doing  it like that for years and years. The wilted lettuce is very much like it as well.

But this dressing- this is a more stabilized version of that, and as I know it, they sell it as something called Wos-Wit Dressing  in Pennsylvania that you can buy bottled. But the kind of dressing it is seems perfectly Amish to me,  and that goes along with the Pennsylvania Dutch idea. And uses for this dressing go beyond wilted lettuce salad to putting on green beans, to serving with potato or macaroni salad or even cole slaw.

So this recipe does make a small jar full, which should last about a week refrigerated, and you can use it in everything you like.

If you do buy the Wos-Wit dressing back east,  let me know how this dressing compares,  because I can’t buy it here to tell with 100% certainty. Let me know in the comments.

Make sure you join me tomorrow when I have a double-header of recipes going up, one for Sunday Supper which is my recipe for Slow Cooker Jamaican Rice and Peas soup. As well,  for #WaffleWeek, I will be posting my recipe for Cinnamon Horchata Waffles with Apple Topping. C’ya then and have a great Labor Day weekend!

~Sue

Wilted Lettuce Salad with Hot Bacon Dressing

• Servings: 4
• Time: 2hr 30mins
• Difficulty: easy
• Print

Hot Bacon Dressing Ingredients:

(Yield: 2-1/2 cups)

• 1 cup milk
• 1 tablespoon grainy mustard
• 1 teaspoon celery seed
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/4 cup bacon drippings or olive oil
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup water
• 10 ounces bacon, cooked crisp and crumbled (6 slices)
• 1 egg, whisked with 1 teaspoon water

Method:

1. Whisk together the milk, mustard, celery seed, salt, black pepper, sugar,and cornstarch and place in a sauce pan.
2. Add the bacon drippings, vinegar and water and stir until it reaches a boil.
3. Quickly whisk 1/2 cup of the dressing with the eggs to temper it, then quickly stir the egg mixture back into the rest of the dressing.
4. Stir in crumbled bacon.
5. Chill until needed, heating before use.

Wilted Lettuce Salad Ingredients:

• 3 ounces torn baby spinach leaves
• 3 ounces chopped red leaf lettuce
• 6  scallions, chopped
• 2 hard cooked eggs, sliced
• 4 slices bacon, cooked crisp and crumbled
• 3/4 cup hot bacon dressing (see recipe above)

Salad method:

1. Toss lettuce and spinach with scallions and bacon.
2. Heat dressing to a boil, then toss quickly with lettuces and then top with chopped egg.
3. Serve at once.

From the kitchen of palatablepastime.com

International Bacon Day

• Bacon Corn Pizza from Caroline’s Cooking
• Bacon Wrapped Asparagus from A Day In The Life On The Farm
• Barbecue, Bacon, & Cheddar Stuffed Sweet Potatoes from Tip Garden
• Chicken Bacon Ranch Skillet from Amy’s Cooking Adventure
• Broccoli Bacon Salad from Feeding Big
• Hot German Potato Salad with Bacon from Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice
• Pasta Carbonara Torte from Karen’s Kitchen Stories
• Roast Beef, Ham and Bacon Club Sandwich from Family Around The Table
• Warm Bacon Gruyere Dip with Caramelized Onion and Chive from Bear & Bug Eats
• Wilted Lettuce Salad with Hot Bacon Dressing from Palatable Pastime