“Best salad ever.” That's what Hubs keeps saying. I'd say even the kids agree with him. They're not fans of salad, but they love this. I first saw it on The Pioneer Woman, and Ree says she based it on this Pampered Chef recipe. Whoever created it is a genius, as far as I'm concerned. I could eat the ground beef mixed with ketchup, mustard, and barbecue sauce in a bowl with a spoon, and I am not a meat lover.
I didn't have any hot dog or hamburger buns to make the croutons as suggested in the recipe, so we had it with oven fries. The fries were the perfect accompaniment, and made the meal gluten-free.
I also made it a tiny bit healthier by adding raw spinach and young kale leaves to the romaine, and a cup of leftover cooked quinoa to the ground beef. Sweetpea said, “I know what you put in here. You put quinoa in the meat. But it's ok. I still really like it.” That darn germ ring is a dead giveaway.
The salad provided great dinner conversation. We talked about all kinds of variations we should try. Sweetpea wanted to try it with homemade cheese sauce instead of grated cheese. Hubs wanted honey mustard dressing. (Yuck.) I thought a Big Mac/fry sauce/special sauce type dressing (there are lots of copycat recipes online) would be good.
We all agreed, reluctantly, that we'll have to make this a turkey burger salad (using ground turkey instead of beef) if we add this to our regular rotation. Sigh.
Click over to the recipes and make it! Let me know what variations you come up with, so I can add them to our list. :)
