Spring and summer are the salad seasons – and nothing goes better on salad than freshly cooked crispy crumbled bacon – ergo, spring and summer are the bacon seasons.

Just kidding, of course – every season is the bacon season! But spring and summer are the seasons of the year when I most often enjoy a salad of tart greens dressed with a salad dressing made from bacon fat, and if you've never tried a bacon fat vinaigrette, you have not yet fully lived.

A bacon vinaigrette is very good on:

• Spinach salad or warm spinach salad
• A salad of mixed lettuces
• Blanched fresh green beans
• Sharp tasting greens with thinly sliced Spanish onion
• Thick cut slices of luscious ripe tomatoes
• German style potato salad
• Scallops
• Greens with sliced apples or pears

Pretty much anything that would go well with bacon – tastes good with a bacon vinaigrette!

Bacon vinaigrette

• About 6 ounces of bacon
• 3-4 Tbls of red wine, balsamic or sherry vinegar
• A spoonful of Dijon mustard
• A Tbls of finely minced shallots (this is optional, but minced shallots make just about anything taste better)
• Salt to taste

Easy Instructions

1. Cook the bacon in a frying pan to desired crispiness, and reserve
2. Let the bacon cool down a little bit, and then in the same pan you cooked the bacon in (and which still hold the liquid bacon fat) add in the vinegar and the mustard (and the shallots if using) and whisk it all together, scraping up the browned bits from the pan and adding in salt to taste.
3. Depending on the fattiness of the bacon, you may need to add more vinegar – it's a question of balance and a question of preference, I tend to like my vinaigrettes a little on the tart side, and so I often find myself adding in more.

That's it that's all, so easy, but like all things bacon related…so so good!

You can also make this dressing with some bacon fat you have reserved from an earlier fry up. You should not, of course, ever throw out the rendered fat from bacon – it is culinary gold and such an easy flavor builder to anything you sauté, in addition to salad dressings.