Hood River Salad

Submitted by Chef PotPie

"A green salad that at first sounds strange,or did to me, but I was surprised the first time I tasted it over 10 years ago. Since then, every time I've served it I've been asked for the recipe. All of the ingredients meld very well, surprisingly!"

 

• Ready In: 20mins
• Ingredients: 9
• Serves: 8-10

ingredients

• 1 head romaine lettuce, torn
• 1⁄2 cup raisins
• 1⁄2 cup toasted slivered almonds
• 1 diced avocado
• 6 -8 slices fried bacon, crumbled (see tip, below)

• DRESSING

• 1⁄4 cup salad oil
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 3 tablespoons chili sauce, such as Heinz (or ketchup)
• 1 tablespoon sugar

directions

1. Toast the almonds on medium-low heat in a non stick pan, just until light brown, stirring so they don't burn.
2. Make the dressing and shake till sugar is dissolved, then refrigerate.
3. You can make this salad an hour or so ahead by tossing the torn romaine, raisins and almonds together. At the last minute add the freshly diced avocado (to keep it from turning brown) and the bacon (to keep it from looking anemic), then toss all with the dressing just before serving.
4. TIP: When I've been asked to make this salad on short notice you can use the packaged, REAL (not fake!) bacon crumbles by Hormel. Nobody tastes the difference, including me, so I do this and it's a huge time saver.

Reviews

[DailyInspiration]

This is such a unique salad and the ingredients really compliment each other. We love fruit in our salads and so the raisins were definitely included. The dressing is definitely different from most dressings -- we really enjoyed the chili sauce in the dressing. Definitely a repeat at our house. : )

 

[Galley Wench]

Great Salald. . . just wish I'd had some rasins . . . took SusieQuisie's lead and used tomatoes. Love the dressing!

 

[SusieQusie]

Made for my avocado-loving friend, Twissis ;-) Nice combo of flavors even though I omitted the raisins & almonds by request. I'm not sure I did the dressing correctly - the chili sauce I used had a BIG bite to it but I loved it! Will try again with the sweeter chili sauce, raisins & almonds but I don't know how it could possibly improve the flavor! ;-) Thanks!

 

[twissis]

DH & I are in Dallas visiting SusieQusie & this salad was part of our "Welcome to Dallas" dinner tonite. We chg'd the salad by leaving out the raisins & almonds & adding tomato. The dressing is the star of this recipe IMHO & it is a real winner! When home again, I'll be making this for us w/the raisins + tomato next time. We loved it! Thx for sharing w/us.

 

[Nimz_]

This was an excellent, although I will admit that I didn't measure out anything. I just made two individual salads for DH and me. The dressing was made as written and was excellent. Great combination in this salad. Thanks