Slivered Wedge Salad with Buttermilk Dressing and Bacon
on Sep 22, 2014, Updated Aug 11, 2023
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This is more of a "wedge" salad than a wedge salad, if you will. All of those amazing flavors and textures, but a bit easier to eat.


Like many people, my eyes light up when I see a wedge salad on a restaurant menu. It’s just the perfect retro salad indulgence, the hunk of iceberg with its dearth of nutrients, the creamy dressing, the fat crumbles of bacon on top.
I was busy in the produce section of the market the other day, buying my fair share of nutritionally and politically correct produce (organic lacinato kale anyone? why yes, I’ll take 3 pounds?), and my eye fell upon those pale green orbs of iceberg lettuce. Why should this kind of salad joy be relegated to restaurants alone?
Deconstructed Wedge Salad
Here’s the thing I did differently, though. I slivered up the lettuce into ribbons of crunchiness, which allowed the dressing and the bacon to disperse themselves more evenly throughout. I definitely don’t mind dissembling a big quarter head of iceberg lettuce as I eat, but this was a different kind of salad-eating pleasure.
More of a “wedge” salad than a wedge salad, if you will.
Make Ahead Wedge Salad
You can easily make all of the components ahead of time. Bacon can be fried up and crumbled a few days ahead (and then hidden in the back of the fridge somewhere or you may just have an iceberg salad with buttermilk dressing—at least that’s what would happen in my house. The dressing can also be made a few days ahead, ad you could sliver up the lettuce 2 several days ahead as well. Just make sure to keep everything well sealed in the fridge.
Healthy Buttermilk Dressing
I used yogurt instead of sour cream in the dressing to attempt to introduce a modicum of healthfulness into this dish, and didn’t have blue cheese, so that wasn’t in play, but you may well say pish posh, I’m going with sour cream instead, and you may remember to pick up blue cheese.
The perfect retro salad indulgence with the hunk of iceberg lettuce, the creamy buttermilk dressing, and the fat crumbles of bacon on top.
Other Satisfying Salad Recipes:
- Fully Loaded Spinach Salad with Bacon and Blue Cheese
- Endive, Radicchio and Citrus Salad with Bacon Vinaigrette
- Bistro Salad with Warm Goat Cheese
- Late Summer Cobb Salad
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Ingredients
- 1 shallot
- ½ onion cut into chunks
- ⅔ cup plain Greek yogurt or sour cream
- ¾ cup buttermilk
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
- 1 head iceberg lettuce quartered cored and thinly sliced crosswise
- 6 strips crisp-cooked bacon crumbled
Instructions
- Place the shallot and onion into a good processor and process until very finely chopped, basically pureed. Add the yogurt, buttermilk, lemon juice, vinegar and mustard, and process until smooth.
- Place the slivered lettuce into a bowl, arranging it attractively. Drizzle over the dressing, and sprinkle on the bacon.
“… the hunk of iceberg with its dearth of nutrients…”, haha. But fiber, or so I’m told.
let’s go with fiber. not that I need an excuse….