Tonight’s Dinner: BLT Pasta Salad

Pasta Salad can be a great alternative to a standard entree salad, but sometimes there’s just not enough “meat” to it. Add some bacon and tomatoes and you’ve got a pasta salad that no one will expect and everyone will love.

Sometimes I just need to have a BLT, a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich; especially if the bacon’s nice and thick and the tomatoes are of the heirloom variety. But a BLT isn’t really great for dinner because it’s usually not that filling.

Recently I’d started seeing it at restaurants as a salad and that sounded interesting to me. But even less filling because now I was having a BLT with no bread. So, if I was going to make a BLT in salad form, I wanted it to be filling. I love pasta salads, especially in the summer time, so I thought why not add pasta? It’ll be the perfect meal for a warm summer night and seriously filling. I was right. One helping was totally satisfying and absolutely delicious. So from now on when I’m craving a BLT, I’m having it in salad form!

BLT Pasta Salad

Ingredients

• 12 ounces farfalle pasta
• 5 strips of bacon
• 1/2 cup red onion, chopped
• 2 medium heirloom tomatoes, chopped
• 1 head of romaine lettuce, chopped
• 1/3 cup Italian dressing

Directions

1. Cook the pasta according to the package; drain, pour into a large serving bowl and set aside.
2. While the pasta cooks, fry the bacon in a large skillet over medium-high heat until brown and crisp, about 2 minutes per side. Transfer the bacon to a piece of paper towel to drain and crumble up into bite-size pieces. Discard all but two tablespoons of the bacon grease.
3. Return the skillet to the stove and cook the onions over medium heat in the reserved bacon grease until brown and wilted, about 3 minutes. Add the tomatoes to the skillet and cook for another minute. Pour tomatoes, onions and bacon grease into salad bowl with pasta. Add the lettuce, bacon and salad dressing and toss to coat. Serve immediately if you’d like it hot or 30 minutes later at room temperature.

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