Oven-Fried Bacon and Buttermilk Ranch Dressing

Last week I made a big salad for dinner, with grilled chicken, homemade ranch dressing, and crispy bacon on top. It was really yummy. Here are the recipes I used for the ranch dressing and the bacon.

BLT Chopped Salad with Creamy Buttermilk Ranch Dressing from Averie Cooks. At first I was not impressed by the dressing, thinking that the Hidden Valley envelope mix was better. BUT the mayo I used was canola oil mayo, which definitely has a different color and texture than regular mayo.  I'm looking forward to trying this recipe again with regular mayo.  (Even with the canola oil may, over time, the dressing definitely grew on me and by the time I was finishing off the jar I had no complaints.)

For the bacon in my salad I did this: Oven-Fried Bacon from Brown Eyed Baker. I always have a hard time cooking bacon - getting it crispy but not burned. This technique was so simple (you just get it going and then walk away for 20 minutes!), and I'll probably make bacon this way for the rest of my life. In fact, I have bacon in the oven right this minute, for some fancy grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner. YUM!

Thanks for stopping by!