How to Make Wedge Salad with Bacon: Easy 2026 Recipe

A wedge salad is a quarter of an iceberg lettuce head, drenched in a thick blue cheese dressing, and buried under crisp bacon, crumbled cheese and cherry tomatoes. Learning how to make wedge salad with bacon is mostly about temperature and timing: keep the lettuce cold and dry, crisp the bacon in a hot oven, and add the dressing at the very last second. Most of the work happens in about 20 minutes, and almost none of it is difficult.

The reason restaurant wedges taste like more than cold lettuce is contrast. You want a wedge that snaps, bacon that shatters, cheese that crumbles, and a dressing thick enough to sit on the leaves instead of sliding off. Get those four things right and the rest is just arranging.

What You Need

For the salad

• 1 large head iceberg lettuce, cold and tightly packed
• 8 slices thick-cut bacon
• 1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese, plus more for the top
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1/4 small red onion, thinly sliced or soaked in cold water
• 2 tablespoons chopped scallions or chives
• Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper

For the blue cheese dressing

• 1/2 cup full-fat sour cream
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1/2 cup finely crumbled blue cheese
• 1 tablespoon buttermilk or milk
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• Salt and black pepper to taste

Tools

A rimmed baking sheet, a wire cooling rack that fits inside it, a sharp chef’s knife, and a salad spinner. The rack matters more than it sounds: bacon laid directly on a sheet sweats and steams, while bacon on a rack gets air underneath it and crisps on both sides.

Pick the lettuce with the loose outer leaves pulled off, then squeeze the head. If it gives easily and feels hollow, skip it. A heavy, dense head with pale green tightly packed leaves will hold a clean wedge; a soft one shreds the moment you cut it.

Almost everything can be done ahead. The dressing keeps in the fridge for 2 days, and the bacon keeps for 5 days refrigerated or about 3 months frozen. Only the cut lettuce and the final assembly should happen close to serving, since cut iceberg starts to relax and go soft within an hour or two.

Step-by-Step: How to Make Wedge Salad with Bacon

1. Crisp the bacon and mix the dressing

Heat the oven to 400F. Lay the bacon in a single layer on the rack, then slide the rack onto the lined sheet.

Bake for 14 to 18 minutes, turning once at the halfway mark, until the fat has rendered and the edges are dark brown but not scorched. Watch it in the last four minutes; the difference between perfectly crisp and bitter happens fast.

Transfer the bacon to a paper towel and let it cool while you make the dressing. Don’t drain it in the pan, because the pooled fat steams the crispy surface and softens it.

For the dressing, mash the crumbled cheese into the sour cream and mayonnaise first, then stir in the buttermilk, lemon juice, Worcestershire and garlic powder. Season, then cover and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes so the flavors marry. It will thicken noticeably as it chills.

Crumble the cooled bacon into rough pieces. Don’t chop it fine; you want shards about the size of a lentil that sit on top and stay put.

2. Cut and season the lettuce wedges

Trim the base of the head, then stand it core-side down on the cutting board. Cut it into six wedges, running the knife straight down from the root to the top leaves, and leave a thin wedge of the core attached to each piece. That core is the handle that holds everything together.

If the head resists, tap the core end firmly against the counter a few times to loosen the root, then cut. Forcing the knife through a tight head bruises the leaves and the bruised sections go limp in the bowl.

Rinse each wedge quickly under cold water and spin it dry. Water hiding in the layers is the number one cause of a watery plate, and the dressing clings to dry leaves far better than to wet ones.

Chill the wedges for 10 minutes while you plate up. Cold lettuce is crisp lettuce.

3. Arrange the bacon and toppings

Set the wedges cut-side up in a single layer, with the pointed end toward the diner. Lay a spoonful of the blue cheese dressing on each wedge first, then scatter the bacon, the extra crumbled cheese, the cherry tomatoes, the red onion and the scallions on top.

Putting the dressing on before the toppings is what restaurant kitchens do, and it’s the reason their wedges hold together. The toppings sit in a slightly sticky layer instead of sliding off a bare leaf.

4. Dress, season and serve immediately

Chill your serving plates for 10 minutes in the freezer if you remember, then dry them. A cold plate keeps the leaves crisp for a few extra minutes and it looks sharp.

Add a second light drizzle of dressing over the toppings, then season with flaky salt and more cracked black pepper than feels right. Serve it straight away, while the bacon still snaps.

Nobody eats a wedge with a fork alone. Cut into it with a knife, eat a bite with the fork, and use the core as your handle for the rest. If the wedges are large, halve each one lengthwise before serving; it makes smaller portions and gives you more pieces for a group.

Common Mistakes When Making Wedge Salad with Bacon

The lettuce goes watery. The leaves were not dried properly, or the wedges sat dressed for too long. Spin the wedges hard, pat the cut faces with a towel, and keep the dressing off until you’re ready to eat.

The bacon is soggy or scorched. Soggy bacon means it was crowded into one thick layer or sat on the sheet instead of the rack. Scorched bacon means it sat too long at 400F. Use the rack, keep the slices flat and single, and pull them the moment the fat has rendered clear.

The dressing is too thin to cling. Chilling fixes most of it. If it is still loose, stir in another two tablespoons of crumbled cheese or a tablespoon more sour cream; if it’s too thick, loosen it with a teaspoon of buttermilk at a time.

The wedge falls apart in the bowl. The core was cut away or the head was soft. Keep a generous wedge of core on each piece and choose the heaviest head on the shelf.

The toppings pile up on one side. One person gets all the bacon and another gets lettuce. Divide the bacon, cheese, tomatoes and onion among the wedges as you plate rather than sprinkling over the top of the whole dish at the end.

The whole thing is too rich to eat. Two fixes help. Serve it as a starter before the main course instead of alongside a heavy plate, and add something sharp with it, like a squeeze of lemon, pickled onions, or halved grape tomatoes with the seeds exposed.

For a game-day spread, double the bacon and the cheese rather than the dressing, plate the wedges on a chilled platter, and put the dressing in a small bowl on the side so nobody drowns a wedge before they eat it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Start with the lettuce: keep it cold, dry it properly after rinsing and leave a wedge of core on every piece. That is what holds the salad together. Then crisp the bacon on a rack at 400F, make the blue cheese dressing a day ahead if you can, and put the dressing on at the last moment. Finish with more bacon and more blue cheese than feels sensible. That is how to make wedge salad with bacon that tastes like it came out of a steakhouse kitchen.