Bacon and Squash Salad Kale Salad

This sweet and savory sheet-pan recipe has everything you want in a full-meal salad: caramelized winter squash, crisp bacon, mustard-dressed kale, maple-toasted pecans and piquant blue cheese. By using one sheet pan for all the cooking, the bacon’s smoky drippings coat the squash for added flavor, and clean-up is a breeze. This salad can be eaten right when it’s made, warm or at room temperature — leftovers are great for lunch the next day. If you have them, feel free to add fresh apples or grapes, dried dates or cherries or another bitter green like radicchio or frisée.

Brooke’s Notes: If you want to bulk this out even further, you could add a can of drained and rinsed chickpeas to the sheet tray with the bacon and squash. You could also sub sweet potatoes for the squash

Recipe

Yield:4 to 6 servings

1½ pounds butternut squash, cut into ¾-inch pieces (about 6 cups, no need to peel)

3 thick-cut bacon strips, cut into 1-inch pieces

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Salt and black pepper

⅓ cup pecans

2 tablespoons maple syrup

3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1½ tablespoons Dijon mustard

1 large bunch Tuscan kale (about 1 pound)

3 scallions, thinly sliced

¼ cup crumbled blue cheese

Instructions

Step 1

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. On a sheet pan, toss the squash and bacon with 1 tablespoon olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Spread into an even layer. Roast for 25 minutes.

Step 2

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, toss the pecans with ½ tablespoon maple syrup and season with salt and pepper. When the squash has roasted for 25 minutes, top with the pecans and roast until the squash is golden and tender and the bacon is crisp, another 5 to 10 minutes. Set aside to cool slightly.

Step 3

While the squash is roasting, in a large bowl, stir together the vinegar, mustard, remaining 1½ tablespoons maple syrup and remaining 2 tablespoons oil. Strip the kale leaves from their stems, then rip the leaves into bite-size pieces and add to the bowl of dressing. (Compost the stems.) Toss with your hands until well coated in dressing. Set aside.

Step 4

Once the squash has cooled slightly, scrape everything from the sheet pan, including some of the bacon fat, into the large bowl. Toss gently to combine, then top with the scallions and blue cheese. Season to taste with salt and pepper.