Spinach Salad with Roasted Grapes and Warm Bacon Vinaigrette

If there’s a way to get veggie naysayers to eat a plate of veggies, it’s to add crispy bits of bacon and some serious bacon-flavored dressing to the mix.

This salad hits all the flavor notes: sweet, salty, savory and sour. It starts with a bed of baby spinach with roasted red grapes, crumbled feta, toasted walnuts and crispy bacon.

After the bacon has cooked, a warm vinaigrette is made from the reserved bacon fat. That might sound like a lot of bacon, but the bacon’s richness is offset by the flavor of feta and roasted grapes.

This salad is great for any weather. The warm components and flavorful vinaigrette make it an ideal addition to your dining table as the season rolls into the cooler fall months.

Make it a meal

This spinach salad is a great accompaniment to grilled or baked proteins like chicken, steak, salmon or other seafood.

If you prefer to bulk up the salad to make a full meal, you can simply add additional veggies, grains and/or proteins. I suggest the following additions:

• Thinly sliced ​​red onion
• Raw or roasted broccoli or cauliflower florets
• farro or barley
• Sliced ​​hard boiled eggs
• Red kidney beans or cannellini beans
• Sliced ​​chicken, steak or fish

The best bacon for the bacon vinaigrette

I recommend using regular bacon in this recipe. It gives off a lot of fat when cooked, which is then used in place of oil in the vinaigrette. You can also use a smoked or flavored bacon variety. As long as it’s pork it should work.

Turkey bacon is fairly lean and doesn’t shed enough drips to make the vinaigrette. However, if you prefer the flavor or nutrition of turkey bacon, you can swap out an equal amount of extra virgin olive oil for the bacon fat in the dressing. I would recommend starting with a quarter cup of the oil and adjusting as needed.

Swaps and Substitutions

Salads are easily customizable, here are a few ideas to change things up:

Green: I find the mild flavor and texture of baby spinach to be the most palatable, but feel free to swap it out for baby cabbage, arugula, or whatever leafy greens you have on hand.

Nuts: If you don’t have walnuts on hand, you can swap them out for pecans, pine nuts, or pistachios.

Cheese: I like the flavor that the feta brings to this salad, but blue cheese or gorgonzola can be substituted.

Fruit: If you’re short on time or grapes, you can skip the roasting step and under-dried cranberries for a similar tangy-tart sweetness.

Prepare the salad just before eating

Salads are best enjoyed freshly made and this one is no exception. It is best consumed immediately after preparation, while the roasted grapes and bacon vinaigrette are still warm.

I don’t recommend planning for leftovers when tossing this salad with the vinaigrette. The spinach goes mushy, the bacon loses its crispiness, and the fat in the dressing congeals in the fridge—not exactly appetizing.

If you have more lettuce than your family can eat at once, dress only the portion of lettuce you intend to eat with vinaigrette.

Store the remaining salad in an airtight container and the remaining vinaigrette in a separate container in the refrigerator and plan to eat within 24 hours. Heat the dressing in a small saucepan on the stovetop or in the microwave before dressing the salad.

Looking for more great salad recipes? Try these!

• Poached Egg and Bacon Salad – Lyonnaise Salad
• Radicchio salad with citrus fruits
• Seaweed Salad by Hetty McKinnon
• Lentil salad with rocket and feta
• Spring vegetable salad with asparagus, peas and radishes