Wilted Spinach Broccoli Salad with Bacon – Old Lady Recipe #5

Once upon a time there was an annoyingly healthy spinach salad that sort of sat around all day looking pert and perky and full of nutrients, basically making an ass of itself, like it was some big deal or something.

Whatever.

Broccoli Bacon SaladThen one day an old granny came along and dumped a bunch of magic bacon grease all over it, thus making it the world’s most delicious salad in one of the two ways an old lady knows how to make things more delicious: by adding bacon or cream sauce, sometimes both, but those recipes might be too tasty for you to handle.

If you have people in your family who hate salad, but really need to eat more vegetables, you should try this recipe. You should also try this recipe if you love BLTs or heart disease. I’m just kidding. It’s not all that bad considering there’s 4 slices of bacon and the salad serves 4 people as a good, solid side dish. I have been known to eat this entire recipe’s worth of salad by myself for lunch, though. But even still, unless you’re on some low-fat kick, any salad dressing has some fat in it and it might as well be bacon fat, I reckon.

Wilted Spinach Broccoli Salad with Bacon Video (scroll down for recipe)

 

Wilted Spinach Broccoli Salad with Bacon Recipe

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Spinach Broccoli Salad with Bacon

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5 from 3 reviews

  • Yield: 4 1x

Ingredients

Scale
  • 56 ounces fresh spinach, washed and dried
  • 4 slices bacon
  • 1/2 cup diced onion
  • 2 cups small broccoli florets
  • Olive oil
  • 2 tablespoons vinegar (sherry, red wine, or cider vinegar)
  • 2 teaspoons maple syrup
  • Black pepper

Instructions

  1. Tear the spinach into bite-sized pieces and set aside in a large salad bowl.
  2. Chop the bacon and cook in a skillet over medium heat, stirring frequently, for about 10 minutes or until the pieces are very crisp and browned.
  3. Remove the bacon bits and set aside.
  4. Saute the onion in the fat for about 5 minutes until softened and translucent.
  5. Add the broccoli and cook another 2-3 minutes or just until it’s bright green but still crisp.
  6. Scrape all the vegetables to the side of the pan and tilt it to see how much fat you have. Add olive oil as needed to make about 2 tablespoons of fat.
  7. Then add the vinegar and maple syrup and stir quickly to get all the browned bacon bits off the skillet.
  8. Pour the hot dressing over the spinach and toss well to coat everything and wilt the spinach.
  9. Sprinkle bacon over the top and serve.

Notes

Fresh cherry tomatoes, diced red bell pepper, and sliced mushrooms would also be good in this salad.

Nutrition

  • Calories: 143
  • Fat: 8
  • Carbohydrates: 8
  • Protein: 9

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Previous “Old Lady Recipes”:

Creamed Spinach Recipe

Homemade Applesauce

Streusel Pear Cake

Broccoli Cheese Casserole

And for tips on how to wash spinach, scroll to the bottom of this recipe.

11 Comments

  1. Great Stone Face on March 27, 2012 at 6:34 pm

    Very hearty spinach salad. I guess I’m used to the wussier versions with little segments of oranges (mandarins, clementines, etc.) and slivered almonds. I like the idea of a warm dressing slightly wilting the spinach leaves.






    • Hilah on March 28, 2012 at 8:21 am

      I like the wilted spinach, too, especially if you’re not using baby spinach leaves. I am very familiar with the salad you speak of, though! We used to have that often growing up – spinach, mandarin oranges and Catalina dressing. Yum!

  2. Topper on March 28, 2012 at 2:38 pm

    I prefer the classic spinach salad (spinach, mushrooms, hard boiled egg, red onion) with the bacon dressing. Muy yum!

    You would get more hits on youtube if you cooked nekkid. Just sayin’….

  3. Jenn on January 24, 2013 at 12:18 am

    Could you add walnuts to this recipe? It looks super yummy and can’t wait to try it!

    • Hilah on January 24, 2013 at 9:32 am

      Of course, Jenn! Walnuts would be a delicious addition!

  4. MarkC on January 25, 2015 at 11:49 am

    Outstanding recipe, Hilah

    My kids don’t usually eat fresh spinach, but they gobbled this up.

    Stumbled onto your site a while back & have enjoyed the YouTube vids.

    Keep up the good work.






    • Hilah on January 26, 2015 at 12:24 pm

      Yay! So happy this recipe worked on your kids, Mark. 🙂 I’m going to take this as a reminder to myself to make this salad again, soon, now that spinach and broccoli are both in season.

  5. Matt on August 8, 2017 at 5:56 pm

    I just made this for our cul-de-sac potluck. Used red onion, it’s all I had but the color worked, and 2 tbsp of maple syrup accidentally. It was gone before all the neighbors could arrive. Will make it again soon so everyone gets some. Might add crumbled blue cheese next time.






    • Hilah on August 9, 2017 at 7:26 am

      Oh blue cheese would be delicious! Thanks, Matt! Glad you liked the salad 🙂

  6. Kaye on March 27, 2019 at 12:47 pm

    Can I use balsamic?

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