Green Lentil & Bacon Salad
When summertime rolls around, salads are a go-to for me. If you use fresh, flavour-packed good-quality ingredients, they can taste genuinely amazing.
The thing is, more traditional salads made with mostly crisp lettuce leaves are not going to go down well with my kids. They don’t mind salad leaves. In fact, they are usually willing to give them a good go. And with a nice dressing tossed through, they can almost enjoy it. But they are still young, and chewing salad leaves to a point where they can safely swallow them usually only lasts for about one leaf!
The French are always big believers in one family meal. There is no “kid’s food” and “adult’s food” when you grow up in France. There is only food. Having been brought up with this, I never even considered cooking separate meals in our family as a possibility. Even when weaning, after they initially tried some different single foods pureed or cut to finger food size to check for allergies and reactions, our kids mostly ate our dinner, unseasoned and blitzed to a smooth or chunky puree.
So while I love a big leafy salad in the summer, and I still sometimes make myself one for lunch if the kids have scoffed all of the leftovers, I like to have some summer salad recipes up my sleeve that the kids will actually be able to eat and enjoy.
This is one of them. Put it in front of my family and it disappears. Quickly.
A French classic, a beautifully simple but delicious combination. And just as yummy for a hearty lunch, light dinner, or even as a side dish for a bigger meal.
A classic French flavour combination made into a beautiful extremely simple and cheap summer salad that everyone can enjoy. Gluten free and low carb. Vegetarian option in the notes.
- 1 tablespoon coconut or olive oil
- 1 medium onion, finely diced
- 4 rashers back bacon (or 1 pack bacon lardons), chopped into lardon-like pieces
- 2 (400g/14oz) tins cooked green or Puy lentils (or use equivalent amount of soaked and cooked dry green lentils)
- 2 large handfuls fresh chard (or spinach), sliced
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar (or balsamic - but please note this will not be sugar free, just low in sugar)
- 125 ml (1/2 cup) extra virgin olive oil
- salt & pepper, to taste
- handful fresh basil (or parsley), roughly chopped (optional)
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Heat the oil in a large frying pan and fry the diced onion over medium heat for 3-4 minutes, until translucent and just starting to brown. Add the bacon pieces and fry until cooked and just starting to crisp up (another 3-4 minutes).
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Mix the lentil and chard into the pan and leave to heat through for a couple of minutes while you make the dressing by adding the mustard, vinegar and olive oil to a lidded jar and shaking until combined. Take the pan off the heat and pour over the dressing, then season to taste with salt & pepper and stir through the fresh herbs, if using. Serve the salad warm or cold.
*For a vegetarian version, try swapping the bacon for crumbled goat's cheese or feta, stirring it through when you add the dressing and seasoning.
**A handful of pine nuts goes really well with this, too!
