Spinach and gorgonzola salad
A delicious salad made with baby spinach leaves, gorgonzola, red onions and crumbled bacon, all tossed in a warm balsamic vinegar, olive oil and dijon mustard dressing. Perfect with barbecued dishes.
Ingredients
Serves: 4
- 75ml balsamic vinegar
- 150ml extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
- salt and pepper to taste
- 4 tablespoons pine nuts
- 450g thickly sliced sweet cured streaky bacon
- 250g baby spinach leaves
- 4 tablespoons crumbled Gorgonzola cheese
- 1 medium red onion, quartered and thinly sliced
Method
Prep:20min ›
Cook:30min ›
Ready in:50min
- In a small bowl, whisk together the balsamic vinegar, olive oil, mustard, salt and pepper to make the dressing. Set aside.
- Place the pine nuts in a dry frying pan over medium heat. Cook and stir for a few minutes, just until they are fragrant and lightly toasted. Set aside to cool.
- Cook bacon in a large frying pan over medium-high heat until evenly browned and crisp. Remove bacon to kitchen towels to drain. Reserve a thin layer of bacon fat in the pan. Stir in about 4 tablespoons of the dressing and turn the heat to medium. Add the onions; cook, stirring occasionally, until caramelised, about 20 minutes.
- Reduce the heat to low and crumble the bacon into the pan. Stir in the remaining dressing and heat through.
- Place the spinach in a large bowl. Pour the warmed dressing with bacon and onion over the spinach, then sprinkle with pine nuts and gorgonzola cheese.
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Reviews & ratings
Average global rating:
(12)
Reviews in English (11)
I can't even rate how this tastes, because we ended up eating a salad of plain spincach with toasted pine nuts, blue cheese, and Ranch dressing. The dressing was going fine until I added the remaining dressing to the pan, where it promptly separated and turned into one big, disgusting, gloppy mess. (The heat was turned to low...) It was unusable as salad dressing. If one is going to make this, I don't recommend heating the remaining dressing, but just stirring the heated onion mixture into the room-temp mixture. I am saving the onion mix to hopefully use on chicken or something. The only thing I was able to use was the toasted pine nuts- those were wonderful. I'm kind of upset about the whole thing because it was very time-consuming, and then it didn't work (and wasted my good olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and bacon). - 16 Nov 2005 (Review from Allrecipes US | Canada)
Yummy. A bit more labor intensive than I imagined so I did some shortcuts -- used pre-cooked bacon pieces and heated up with a little bit of oil. Used a much smaller amount also and we more than enough bacon in the dressing. Used regular blue cheese instead of gorganzola but next time will up that amount slightly. Finally, I just put the onions in with the bacon and let it all cook together. - 08 Mar 2005 (Review from Allrecipes US | Canada)
This sounded so yummy, BUT my husband and 2 guests didn't love it. Made according to directions except cut back to 1/2 lb. bacon (still too much). Overload on calories and time-consuming, I don't think I'll make this recipe again. With some overhaul, I think the recipe has potential - using the same basic ingredients, cutting down on the measurements and lightening up on the dressing (2/3 C of olive oil is excessive). - 01 Nov 2005 (Review from Allrecipes US | Canada)