Bacon Ranch Dressing on Cheeseburger Salad

One of our favorite spots to grab a meal at is Black Bear Diner. My babes favorite salad there is the CHEESEBURGER salad. My favorite is the TACO SALAD. Both delicious and nice for a night where we want the flavor but aren't really feeling the carbs (haha. There are no carbs in these salads.... because it's salad...). We tried replicating the Taco salad a couple of weeks ago. Always a yummy experiment. Tonight was cheeseburger salad time. The online Black Bear Diner menu lists exactly what is in the salad so that part was pretty easy. 

Included in the salad is

  • Salad mix (I bought romaine lettuce and chopped it up fresh)
  • Burger patty chopped up (I used a 75/25 chuck and brisket mixed burger patty, Schweid and Sons brand. I forgot to salt it when cooking. This would be good to do next time. But for a premade patty, the meat was pretty good.)
  • Thick Cut smoked bacon (I used Peppercorn bacon from the counter at Smiths. I also learned that my recent practice in cooking bacon for breakfasts--less crunchy--was not the most ideal for chopped up pieces in a salad. Makes sense. But I don't particularly like bacon so I go with what I have been told and no changes were made. Next time.)
  • Dill pickle chips (We used Famous Dave's signature spicy pickle chips)
  • Tomato (Babes chose not to partake. I did. Yum.)
  • Red onion
  • Cheddar Cheese
  • This salad is typically served with a thousand island dressing, but Babes really loves the Bacon Ranch at Black Bear so I wanted to give this a shot. 

The next part was.. also pretty easy. But I liked this recipe so I wanted to remember it. I'm a little picky about Ranch Dressing. I rarely LOVE a ranch dressing. I almost always like it. I LOVE Ken's Ranch Dressing. I liked this dressing a lot. Almost loved it. Somewhere in between. 

I found this recipe at petersfoodadventures.com/2016/03/11/bacon-ranch

  • 1 cup of mayonnaise
  • 1 cup of sour cream
  • 1/2 cup buttermilk
  • 2 cloves of crushed garlic
  • 1 teaspoon of minced onion (I used a yellow onion)
  • 1 teaspoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice (I did not use fresh, but that would probably be better)
  • 1/2 teaspoon of paprika
  • 1 teaspoon vinegar
  • 1/4 cup chopped parsley (don't forget to take this down to 1/3 or 1/4 cup if using dried parsley)
  • 1 teaspoon chopped dill
  • 12 teaspoons (or 4 tablespoons) Hormel Real Bacon Pieces or to taste about half the 30oz jar
  • (Peter explains that using freshly cooked and chopped bacon doesn't work for this as well as the jar of bacon pieces because the extra bacon grease and the irregular size and chop of the fresh bacon negatively affects how the ranch turns out.)

So basically you just, 

1. Whisk all ingredients together EXCEPT the bacon pieces. Whisk thoroughly. Whisk it good..

2. Add the bacon pieces. Stir in. Taste. Add more if needed. Stir. Taste. Lather rinse repeat. 

3. Let it cool and sit in the refrigerator for a few hours (but if you're in a hurry to eat some ranch, just go for it. It's also fine.)

Wala! Delish and filling salad and dressing. 


For Next time: Salt the meat, cook the bacon a little more, maybe go with a fresher meat mixture and form the patties myself.

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