(I’m currently walking a portion of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela – follow along on Instagram!)
The focus for this year’s Food Revolution Day was about sharing the power of cooking, the benefits of cooking from scratch and, ultimately showing people that changing our food choices can make us both healthier and happier. Instead of one official recipe as there has been in years past, this year, we have a set of 10 recipes chosen by Jamie Oliver that he deems the “Starter Pack of Cooking”. Each recipe covers a different skill and technique that can give anyone the confidence to cook good, real, healthy meals for themselves and their families, for now and the future. Jamie has spoken about the idea of ten recipes to save your life since his TED talk in 2010. Each month from now until December, I’ll be sharing my own twist on Jamie’s recipes which will be showcased along with nine other Ambassador’s ideas over on JamieOliver.Com. You can see previous posts here.
For this month’s Food Revolution Recipe Twist, we were tasked with tweaking Jamie’s simple green salad with lemon dressing. This was such a hit when I made it with my Cooking Basics cooking club – the boys loved making the dressing and shaking it up…
And I was shocked to see how keen they were on composing their own salad plates when they were given the choice of greens… (if they make it they will (be much more likely to) eat it!)
Such a fabulous basic recipe that everyone should know how to make!
When I was considering how I would tweak this, I went back to my OWN basics. When I am preparing a meal for one, a salad is very often the direction I will go and I’m thankful that I know how to make a pretty good tasting vinaigrette (if I do say so myself!).
One of my favourites, because it’s so versatile, is lemon-based with a smattering of poppyseeds and today, the recipe I am sharing sees it dressing a big chopped salad – lots of lettuce and tomatoes with bacon, avocado and a poached egg. It’s pretty much my idea of the perfect salad-for-dinner.
Big chopped bacon lettuce avocado and tomato salad with lemon-poppyseed vinaigrette
Salad for dinner? Yes, when it involves bacon, lettuce, tomato, avocado and a poached egg dressed in a lemon poppyseed vinaigrette!
Ingredients
For the salad:
- 2-3 handfuls mixed salad leaves (I used mostly romaine to keep some crunch!), shredded finely
- 10-12 cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
- 3 rashers bacon, cooked and roughly chopped or crumbled
- 1/2 small avocado, cubed
- 1 poached or soft-boiled egg
For the dressing (makes 175mls/ 3/4 cup so it's much more than you need for 1 serve)
- 80mls (1/3 cup) olive oil
- 4 tablespoons lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard (not the grainy kind)
- 1/2 teaspoon poppyseeds
- salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
Make the dressing:
- Place all ingredients in a clean jam jar and shake well.
- Season to taste with salt and pepper.
- Refrigerate until needed.
- Place the salad leaves and tomatoes in a large bowl. Mix to combine.
- Shake the salad dressing well.
Assemble the salad
- Dress the salad according to taste then use a pair of tongs or salad utensils to toss the salad, thoroughly coating the leaves with the dressing.
- Add in the bacon and avocado and gently toss the leaves to combine.
- Serve topped with the poached or soft-boiled egg.
Notes
Note: the dressing recipe yields approximately 175mls (3/4 cup) of dressing which is more than you will need for 1 serve of salad.
What about you – what’s YOUR favourite salad (dressing)?
I have to say, I do *covet* the lemon Dijon dressing that no one outside can seem to reproduce “just right”. No commercial versions to be found this side of the pond come close to that simple perfection…
(I’m assuming a bottle is in our fridge awaiting my arrival!) 😉
Yes that dressing is waiting for you -but this one definitely comes close!
I missed a word. That was supposed to say: “outside FRANCE”.
Gotcha!
What a lovely salad! Thanks for sharing!
Mm, salad for one! I am tempted to try your salad dressing. My favourite salad dressing is strawberry vinaigrette, but I love fruit on salads. 🙂
I definitely love strawberry vinaigrette but not on this salad 😉
Love anything with poppy seeds – I have all ingredients on hand so can’t wait to make this. Happy Camino walk – would love to hear about that if I see you at FBC2016!
I am ALWAYS looking for new dressings, this one sounds so refreshing…I can picture my hubby and I devouring a huge salad with this! Thanks for sharing!
I hope you try it and love it 🙂
I think that your approach here was fantastic, and I love that this salad is a part of your teaching repertoire (and Jamie’s for that matter!). Salads get the short shrift so often, but a good salad is such a great thing to understand, make and (of course!) eat. And this certainly looks like a GREAT salad (and I totally agree on the poppy seeds!).
Oh I definitely think vinaigrette is a must-know recipe for kids. No need to buy bottled stuff and so much tastier (also fun to make!).