Dishing Up the Dirt

Swiss Chard Salad with Bacon & Blue Cheese

One of the greatest joys of working at the farmers market is bartering with other venders for meat, cheese, honey, fermented foods, bread and sometimes even beer! Whenever we leave the market we’re usually stocked up with items that we don’t grow/raise on Tumbleweed farm and it sets us up for a great week of eating local, delicious food. This particular salad highlights the best blue cheese from one of my favorite cheese makers (Cascadia Creamery) and crispy bacon from a local farm. We tossed our own swiss chard in a honey-balsamic vinaigrette and topped it with the pickled chard stems I whipped up the other day. The result is a simple and flavorful summer salad.

We hope you all enjoy this salad as much as we do.

Swiss Chard Salad with Bacon & Blue Cheese

Prep Time: 15 min    Cook Time: 7 min    Serves: 4

Dressing
  • 2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
  • 1 Tablespoon honey
  • 1 teaspoon dijon mustard
  • 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • coarse salt and ground pepper to taste
Salad
  • 1 bunch of swiss chard
  • 4 strips of good quality bacon
  • 1/4 cup blue cheese, crumbled
  • 1/4 cup pickled chard stems (optional)
  • Flakey sea salt
 

Preparation

  1. Whisk together all the ingredients for the dressing and set aside.
  2. Wash and dry the chard and remove the stems (make quick pickled chard stems) Stack the chard leaves and roll them like a cigar. Slice the leaves into thin ribbons. Place the chard ribbons in a large bowl and set aside.
  3. Place the bacon in a large skillet. Turn the heat to medium-high and fry the bacon until crisp. Remove from the pan and place on paper towels to drain. Once cool enough to hanld roughly chop the bacon.
  4. Toss half of the dressing with the chard leaves and use your hands to gently massage the dressing into the leaves. Divide the chard between plates and top each plate with crumbled bacon, blue cheese, pickled chard stems and a drizzle of more dressing.

Notes

*Use this recipe as a guide *Adjust measurements and ingredients as necessary


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