The Best Frisée Salad ever—the Secret is bacon
I love this salad as much as bitter greens love pork fat. The sweet, crisp, yet slightly bitter frisée endive balances perfectly with both the rich bacon and egg, brightened up with balsamic vinegar and caramelized onions.
Adapted from this recipe from Bon Appetit (image source)
Ingredients
½ head Frisée Endive
About 6 thick bacon slices or bacon ends, chopped
1 Sweet Onion, sliced
¼ bunch Fresh Italian Parsley, roughly chopped
¼ cup balsamic vinegar
Bread (end of a loaf will do) torn into croutons (or pre-packaged)
3 Tbsp olive oil
Salt and Pepper taste (plus pepper at the end for pretties)
2 eggs, poached (Before this week, I never poached an egg. And you know what—it’s easy. Y’all should try it, if not today, then sometime soon.)
Directions
Heat up olive oil in a skillet over medium, add torn bread and toss to coat. Sprinkle a couple pinches of salt and cracks of pepper. Stir until golden brown & crisp, 4-5 minutes, then transfer to a plate to cool.
Return skillet to medium heat and toss in chopped bacon, stirring frequently until just halfway to crisp, 3-4 minutes. Add onions and continue to cook another 3-4 minutes. Stir in about ¼ cup balsamic vinegar, scraping bottom of skillet to collect all the yummy bits. Taste, add more vinegar if needed.
Place chopped Frisée & parsley into a big bowl. Pour the onion-balsamic-bacon magic over the Frisée, toss until mixed well, then toss in croutons.
Top with a poached or soft-boiled egg (see link for tutorial on easy egg poaching). But basically, just crack two eggs into a little bowl, bring a pot of water to boil, turn off the heat, & gently roll two cracked eggs into the water, one at a time, don’t touch it for 2.5-3 minutes, then remove carefully. Poached. It does help to crack the eggs first over a mess strainer to drain off excess white.
