Five Spice Bacon Salad

Five spice pork is a lovely traditional chinese dish - the sweet and savoury taste of the five spice seasoning goes lovely with natural richness and juiciness of pork chops...

And bacon. :)

With summer well and truly here, salads have been the most appetising and easiest simple dinner option to enjoy - but it's been important to keep salads interesting, and filling. This salad is exceptionally light, but the addition of the bacon (and even the little bit of bacon grease!) makes it a hearty dinner option. Serve with a little bit of rice for an even more filling option.

Five Spice Bacon Salad

Ingredients:

6 slices of middle bacon
2 tbs chinese five spice
30 g snow pea sprouts
150 gram mixed lettuce
1 ya pear cut into thin slices

Cut bacon into sizable chunks (but not small bits for now) - I usually stack the slices on top of each other and cut through. Coat the "chunks" liberally with five spice seasoning.

In a heated pan, bring the coated bacon to a sizzle. Let cook for about 6 minutes, just until the bacon cooks through without becoming too crispy. Save the grease to drizzle lightly over the salad, if desired.

Remove from pan and cut into bite size pieces. Toss together lettuce, snow pea sprouts and pear slices with the bacon pieces. Drizzle remaining bacon grease into salad (definitely tasty but not the heart healthy option - I also realise that I'm watching the Biggest Loser while I write this, so maybe NOT the most responsible recommendation I can make). Otherwise, you can dress with a light soy and some sesame oil.

Serve over rice for a nice hearty dinner option. (that still counts as "salad").