Sometimes when I’m preparing meals at home I get into a rut with making the same stuff over and over again. Does this happen to anyone else? I often find myself making loaded quinoa bowls of some variety, a snack plate of sorts or tacos of all kinds. Not that any of that bothers me, because lets be serious, I could eat tacos everyday and every night, always, but it’s always nice to change it up once in awhile. This also happens to me a lot with salads. I’ll start a salad streak off strong with fun things like a Southwest Style Cobb Salad or Loaded BBQ Chicken Salad, but slowly end up in plain mixed greens and balsamic vinegar land.
One of my favorite “fun” salads I love to make is this simple Gilled BLTA Gem Salad, which is a rift off of the classic wedge salad. I love how delicate, yet crisp gem lettuce leaves are and grilling them just adds a nice, subtle, smoky flavor. If you want to lighten the dressing up a little you can omit the sour cream for fat-free yogurt and use light buttermilk. Every now and then I’ll add some charred sweet corn to this salad to beef it up even more, but for today we’re sticking with mostly the basics! This is such an easy salad to make that everyone loves, but seems to get forgotten about every now and again. Not today though! Enjoy! xx, Jenny
Grilled BLTA Gem Salad
INGREDIENTS
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 4 heads gem lettuce, halved lengthwise
- 6 rashers cooked bacon, cut into 1-2” pieces
- 12 cherry tomatoes, lightly blistered
- ½ avocado, thinly sliced
- ¼ red onion, thinly sliced and lightly grilled
- 2 ounces crumbled bleu cheese
buttermilk-bleu cheese dressing
- 2 ounces crumbled bleu cheese
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- ½ zest and juice of 1 lemon
- 2 green onions, thinly sliced
- ⅔ cup buttermilk
- ⅓ cup sour cream
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- salt and pepper to taste
INSTRUCTIONS
- Brush cut halves of each gem lettuce head with oil and lightly season with salt and pepper. Sear on a hot grill, cut-side down, for 30 seconds. Remove gem halves and transfer them onto a platter.
- Top grilled gems with bacon, cherry tomatoes, avocado, red onion, crumbled bleu cheese, and a generous drizzle of dressing.
- Finish salad with lemon zest, more crumbled bleu cheese and cracked black pepper. Serve.
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oops, not that we can’t all figure it out. but I think you forgot the directions for the dressing! You have the ingredients, just skipped that step. :-)
Ha! Oh man, my mistake! Thanks for pointing that out! Will update shortly! :)
That looks great, I would add some bacon to kick it up a notch!
There’s totally bacon in this already :D
Is there another type of lettuce that can be used in place of the gem if that isn’t available?
Baby romaine or even regular romaine would work great!