Breakfast Salad |Cooking With Amanda

Breakfast is one of the best perks of working from home. I know you may think a work from home perk should be like pajamas till noon, or bottomless coffee, or whatever music I feel like, explicit lyrics or not, blasting from my speakers while I check tasks off my list, BUT.

Breakfast is pretty high up on my list.

During my days of fleeing from the house before 6 a.m. I never got to eat things like peppered bacon unless it was Sunday… and then I just really didn't want to wash a pan while I did all the laundry in the whole entire house and tried to find a minute to clean the bathrooms, so I just ate cereal.

In case you were wondering, run-on sentences are another perk of working at home.

Back to breakfast though, peppered bacon and warm herbed potatoes over greens are like the highlight of my Wednesday mornings. It makes me happy to taste test all the things for you.

The first time I ever had a breakfast salad I was with my sisters at this happy kinda hippie little cafe in the mountains. Salad in the morning was mind-blowing for me, and I'm not sure why it never occurred to me before, but I am usually waaaaay behind on everything trendy, and so whatever. Here we are.

I KNEW I had to incorporate these warm herbed potatoes into the recipe. I have recently become slightly obsessed with these little bitty potato varieties. They are so cute!!! And you might remember from my gingerbread biscotti that I have a slight fascination with tiny foods. So I went with this petite fingerling potato melody for the breakfast salad pictured, though you could definitely just cut a few red-skinned potatoes into smaller pieces.

The dressing for this salad is made with maple syrup and Dijon mustard. It's sweet and perfectly complements the spice of the peppered bacon. Eggs are cooked to order, and you know me -- I like a runny yolk all the way. But do your thing. Scrambled, hard boiled, poached, over hard -- all the eggs would be awesome in this salad.

These fluffy buttermilk biscuits would make a gorgeous bready accompaniment, or one of these cranberry orange scones, if you're feeling really fancy.

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Breakfast Salad Recipe

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Ingredients

For the Peppered Bacon:

4 slices thick sliced bacon, cut in half
2 teaspoons coarse ground black pepper

For the Warm Herb Potatoes:

12 ounces fingerling potatoes
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 medium shallot, finely minced
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, finely minced
1 tablespoon fresh chives, finely chopped

For the Maple Dijon Vinaigrette:

1 teaspoon stone ground mustard
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
pinch of salt

For the Salad:

12 cups mixed salad greens
1 cup grape tomatoes, quartered
4 eggs, cooked to order

Directions

Sprinkle the bacon all over on both sides with the black pepper. Cook it in a medium skillet until crisp on both sides. Place the bacon on a paper towel to drain and then remove all the grease from the pan except for about a tablespoon.
In a medium stock pot cover the potatoes with water, plus about an inch. Add the kosher salt to the water. Bring it to a boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer until the potatoes are fork-tender -- about 7 minutes. Drain the water and put them back in the stock pot.
Bring the bacon grease back up to temperature over medium heat. Add the shallots and cook them until translucent, 1-2 minutes. Scrape the cooked shallots and remaining bacon grease into the stock pot with the potatoes and toss to coat. Stir in the parsley and chives.
To make the vinaigrette, whisk together the mustard, maple syrup, and rice wine vinegar. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil, whisking constantly. Stir in the pinch of salt.
Place the salad greens and tomatoes in a large bowl. Pour in the vinaigrette and toss to coat. Add the bacon and warm potatoes. Cook the eggs to order and place on top of each salad as you are serving.

Notes

If you cannot find fingerling potatoes in your stores feel free to use red-skinned or yellow potatoes cut into 2" pieces.
If you don't have rice wine vinegar on hand or are unable to find it (It's usually with the Asian foods in my grocery store) you can use another sweet vinegar like white wine vinegar, or even apple cider vinegar.