If there was one salad you needed in your life this summer, this Wedge Salad with Jammy Eggs and Creamy Ranch Dressing would be it. From the jammiest Jammy Eggs, to crispy thick sliced bacon, to ripe cherry tomatoes, to thinly sliced red onions, to crunchy iceberg lettuce, to the dreamiest Creamiest Ranch Dressing, this salad is the 'be all and end all' of summer salads. At first glance and in the first bite, you are destined to put on regular repeat in the months ahead.
Both incredibly flavorful, colorful, and oh-so mouthwatering, it is one of the most deeply satisfying, uber delicious, and tastiest salads to serve to family and friends.
The Wedge Salad with Jammy Eggs and Creamy Ranch Dressing works well as either a side dish or main dish. Serve it up on an artfully arranged large platter for sharing or plate it up beautifully for single servings. Make a loaf of No Knead Rustic Artisan Bread to go along with it, open up a great bottle of wine, and your at home dining game will be worthy of a three, maybe even a four star rating. Seriously, you may never order a Wedge Salad when dining out again someday. This version will permanently spoil your idea of what a Wedge Salad should be.
The Creamy Ranch Dressing is so much more luscious than any ranch dressing you can buy at the store. I might go so far as to say it's worthy of a BEST Creamy Ranch Dressing rating. This comes from someone who has tasted more than their fair share of store-bought ranch dressings. So, in other words, when you make this salad you absolutely MUST make the dressing. And as a bonus, without the addition of some milk, the dressing also makes for a great vegetable dip or for dipping these Cranberry Meatballs in.
Maybe the word jammy caught my attention when I first read about jammy eggs awhile back. And ever since I made my first jammy egg, with it's marmalade-like, somewhere between a soft and medium boiled egg texture, I was hooked. Actually, I became addicted to them for awhile. Over the past several months of endless jammy egg sessions around here, I have learned a few things. Use large eggs as the yolk to white ratio is perfect. Bring your water to a boil over medium-high heat before carefully placing your eggs into the pan. Immediately cover the pan with a tight fitting lid and reduce your heat only slightly as you want the water to maintain a gentle boil for the entire 6 1/2 minutes. Remove them from the boiling water and submerge in a bowl of cold ice water for about one minute to stop the cooking process. Peel when cool enough to handle or let cool completely before peeling. For this salad, if you make the jammy eggs early in the day or at least an hour ahead they will be perfectly peel-able. Note: I have sometimes cooked them as long as 7 minutes, but I like them on the runnier, jammy salad. As long as you don't cook them longer than 7 minutes you will be good.
So let's talk about the bacon. If you are lucky enough to have access to Benton's bacon, the epitome of the world's best bacon, that is the bacon you want to use for this salad. But if not, buy a really good quality, thick cut, hickory smoked bacon. Thinly sliced bacon just doesn't work well as you want your cooked bacon to be both crispy and meaty. Lately, I prefer cooking bacon on the (gas) grill (over aluminum foil) as I am neither a big fan of having that lingering bacon aroma in the house nor one who likes to clean up splattered bacon grease. If you don't have an outdoor gas grill, roast your bacon in a pre-heated 400 degree (F) oven for 15-20 minutes (place bacon on rack set in a large sided baking pan before putting in the oven). You may never fry bacon in a pan again.
There are any number of ways you can arrange this 'to die for' Wedge Salad on a platter. Arranging the ingredients like a Cobb Salad would be an equally beautiful presentation. Alternately you can make individual Wedge Salad plates rather than serving it platter style.
The ingredient amounts listed below are flexible. If you like more cherry tomatoes, add them. If you want more bacon, add it. If you want more Jammy Eggs, make them. If you want enough Creamy Ranch Dressing so you have some leftover for another salad or to serve as a dip, double the recipe. If you are serving the salad for two, reduce the amount of ingredients. Next to how incredibly easy this salad is to make, is how versatile and flexible the ingredient proportions are.
This scrumptious, gorgeous Wedge Salad with Jammy Eggs and Creamy Ranch Dressing may be one of those things we need in our lives to salvage the new normal, not what we had planned summer ahead of us. It will be the bright spot of the day, of the week. And it might just become your most favorite, healthy-ish summer salad.
Wedge Salad w/ Jammy Eggs and Creamy Ranch Dressing
Serves 6
Ingredients
Creamy Ranch Dressing
1 cup good quality mayonnaise
1 cup sour cream
1 green onion, thinly sliced (white and green parts)
2-3 cloves garlic, finely minced (I like to use 3 cloves)
1 1/2 Tablespoons finely chopped chives
1 1/2 Tablespoons finely minced fresh parsley
1 1/2 Tablespoons finely minced fresh dill
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 to 1/3 cup whole milk
Salad
6 Jammy eggs (see directions below), cut in half
7-8 slices of thickly sliced bacon, cooked crisp, each piece cut in half or into thirds
12-14 cherry tomatoes, cut in half (see notes)
1 medium sized head of iceberg lettuce, cut into wedges
Small red onion, thinly sliced
Kosher salt and black pepper for seasoning
Directions
Creamy Ranch Dressing
1. Combine all ingredients in a medium sized bowl. Stir to blend.
2. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator at least 2 hours before serving (could be made the night before).
3. Blend in the milk right before serving. Begin with 1/4 cup. If creaminess is to your liking, stop adding any more milk. If you like it creamier, add milk one Tablespoon at a time.
Jammy. Eggs
1. Bring water to a boil in a medium sized saucepan.
2. Gently lower large eggs into the water. Cover with a lid and reduce the heat down slightly, but still high enough that the water will continue to gently boil.
3. Remove eggs at. 6 1/2 minutes (7 minutes tops) and immediately place in a bowl of ice water. Let sit in the ice water for about a minute to stop the cooking process.
4. Remove from the ice water and let cool to room temperature or until cool enough to handle. Jammy eggs can be made earlier in the day or an hour or less ahead of assembling the salad.
Salad Assembly
1. Begin by arranging the lettuce wedges on the platter, followed by the Jammy Eggs. Then add the bacon and thinly sliced red onion. Note: Your arrangement could be random or similar to a Cobb Salad one.
2. Season generously with kosher salt and black pepper.
3. Serve with the the Creamy Ranch Dressing on the side.
Notes: (1) Use large eggs when making Jammy Eggs. (2) I use cherry tomatoes on the vine as they are generally the most flavorful. (3) You can easily reduce or increase the salad ingredients depending on the number of people you are serving. However, make the Creamy Ranch Dressing as it makes for a great vegetable dip (especially if you don't add the milk.)
