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Ultimate Chef's Salad

Ultimate Chef's Salad

Ingredients

For the Thousand Island dressing:

  • 1½ cups sour cream or Greek yogurt

  • ⅓ cup ketchup

  • 2 tablespoons cider or white wine vinegar 

  • ¼ cup pickle relish

  • 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce 

  • 1 teaspoon hot sauce

  • 1 teaspoon smoked sweet paprika (⅓ palmful)

  • 1 clove garlic, grated or pasted 

  • 1 cup combined fresh herbs: chives, dill, parsley, finely chopped

  • Salt and pepper 

For the pickled onions:

  • 1 small red onion, very thinly sliced

  • 2 tablespoons wine vinegar

  • 1 teaspoon sugar

  • 1 teaspoon salt

  • Pepper, to taste

For the salad:

  • 12 slices meaty smoky bacon

  • 6 hard-boiled eggs, homemade or store-bought

  • 1 bunch scallions, thinly sliced on bias 

  • ¾ to 1 pound sliced roast turkey

  • ¾ to 1 pound sliced rare roast beef

  • ¾ to 1 pound sliced mild/cooked ham or Prosciutto cotto

  • ½ to ¾ pound imported Swiss

  • ½ to ¾ pound provolone   

  • 2 heads iceberg lettuce

  • Salt and pepper, to taste

  • 1½ cups semi-dried tomatoes, drained, or chopped beefsteak tomatoes

  • 1½ cups smoked blue cheese, crumbled 

  • 1½ cups drained and coarsely chopped giardiniera

Directions

Stir up dressing in small bowl. 

For the pickled onions, combine onions, vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper. 

For the salad, preheat oven to 400˚F, bake bacon on slotted pan and bake to very crisp, remove, drain and cool to handle, then coarsely chop.

Quarter the hard-boiled eggs lengthwise. In a bowl, combine with scallions.

Halve the meats and cut into ¾- to 1-inch strips. Slice cheese to match strips in similar size and shape to the meats.

Core the iceberg lettuce by knocking core-side down on counter and removing, then slice the lettuce heads into slabs, then quarter the slabs and arrange on large cutting board or platter. Season with salt and pepper and spoon dressing evenly over. Then arrange in stripes across the bed of lettuce: bacon, turkey, tomatoes, Swiss, ham, eggs and scallions, blue cheese, beef, provolone, and giardiniera. Top salad with the pickled onions and serve.