Bibb Salad with Tomatoes, Blue Cheese & Crispy Onions
Servings: 4 servings
Ingredients
For the Dressing
- 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil or avocado oil
- 4 Tbsp high-quality sherry vinegar
- 1 tsp honey
- 1 tsp Dijon Mustard
- salt and pepper, to taste
Salad Ingredients
- 8 cups Bibb lettuce leaves (butter lettuce will work, too)
- 4 oz blue cheese, crumbled
- 12 oz mixed tomatoes, halved, quartered or cut smaller if large
- 1/2 cup crispy fried onions (or more, to taste)
For Crispy Onions
- 2 lg onions, thinly sliced into half moons and small rings
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- kosher salt and pepper
- vegetable oil for frying
Instructions
For the Dressing
- Whisk oil, honey, mustard and vinegar together in a small bowl until smooth and emulsified. Alternatively, you can use a small jar and shake the ingredients instead of whisking. Season with salt and pepper
For the Salad
- Arrange the torn lettuce leaves attractively on a large platter, or on individual salad plates or bowls. Place tomatoes around the lettuce and drizzle the salad with some of the vinaigrette.
- Top salad with crumbled blue cheese, then finally the crispy onions.
- Pass any additional vinaigrette for diners to dress their salads as they choose.
For the Crispy Onions
- In a bowl, soak sliced onions in buttermilk for 10 minutes.
- In a second bowl, add flour, salt and pepper and whisk to combine.
- Working in small batches, grab a small amount of onions with tongs. Shake off excess buttermilk then toss onions in flour mixture until fully coated.
- In a large heavy-bottomed skillet, heat about 1” oil over medium heat. When the oil is shimmering, add onions and fry until golden, about 2 minutes. Set aside on a rack or paper-lined sheet tray to cool. Sprinkle onions with additional salt.
- Repeat the flouring and frying steps with the remaining batches of onions.
Notes
Notes: the recipe for the crispy onions makes about 2 cups, more than ample for the salad. The rest may be stored in an airtight container for another use, but do use them quickly as they do not keep very long.
Also, while paper towels are most-often used for soaking up oil after frying, regular paper bags work exceptionally well.
Finally, if you want to make the salad but don't have the time to make the onions from scratch, there are a number of store-bought crispy onions that you can use instead.