BLT Potato Salad

BLTs are a hobby of mine.  I like to work bacon, lettuce and tomato into foods that wouldn’t normally have those ingredients.  I think the BLT pasta salad I made four years ago was my favorite.  For other unusual combinations, click on the BLT Creations on the front page of this blog.  In the meantime, we’re going to experiment with potato salad and make it into a BLT dish.  I can imagine it!

I had a bag of small potatoes my P.S. (Personal Shopper/ hubby) brought home recently.  He suggested they’d make good potato salad, skins and all.  We were having a family barbecue over the 4th of July and potato salad is a huge family favorite.  I was reluctant to leave the skins on because the kids might not like that kind of thing.  So I decided to make two potato salads: the original salad, to appease the kids and the BLT one for the adventurous.

Scrub potatoes and cut into 3/4″ cubes. Boil in salted water until fork tender. Drain and cool.

I scrubbed the potatoes well and cut them into about 3/4″ cubes.  Into a pot of salted water they went.  I brought them to a boil and let them cook until the potatoes were fork tender.  I drained them in a colander and placed them in a large mixing bowl to cool.

Dice bacon and fry until browned and crispy. Drain on paper towelling.

Meanwhile I diced up 5 strips of thick cut bacon and browned it in a nonstick skillet.  I got busy and forgot to stir the bacon and it sort of all cooked together in little piles.  Sheesh!  I let the bacon cool a bit before I chopped it up finely and tossed it into the bowl with the potatoes.

In a large bowl place potatoes and halved grape tomatoes.

I had a handful of grape tomatoes in the fridge so I cut them into quarters and added them to my bowl of ingredients.

Add bacon and dice green onion to bowl.

I didn’t have much green onion on hand but managed to add a few tablespoons of chopped green onion to the bowl.  Iceberg lettuce would wilt if it was dressed too soon.  I chopped 2 cups finely and stored it in a separate container until the barbecue.

Add dressing ingredients to a separate bowl and stir well.

The dressing was a new recipe I found for a buttermilk ranch dressing.  The recipe had a few more ingredients than my usual so I wanted to see how close it came to our favorite Hidden Valley.  I whisked the dressing well and tasted.  Hm.  Not too bad!  Definitely flavorful.

Pour dressing over vegetables and stir well. Place in covered container and refrigerate several hours or overnight. Before serving, stir in lettuce.

I poured the dressing over the bowl of ingredients and mixed gently to coat.  I stored the salad in a container in the fridge until the next day when we were having our 4th of July barbecue.

BLT Potato Salad

Just before serving I tossed the salad with the lettuce.  I took my blog photos and stood back to watch the reactions.  Success!  They liked it!  I liked it as well.  It was interesting to have a buttermilk dressing and bacon in potato salad, as well as lettuce.  At times it didn’t feel like a potato salad but more like a riot of vegetables in a salad.    The BLT part wasn’t really obvious.  But it worked and I can cross BLT potato salad off my cooking bucket list.  This was a great recipe!

BLT Potato Salad