If a wedge salad is on a menu, you can bet I will order it. Wedges are my regular. There’s something deeply satisfying about cutting into a wedge of iceberg with a knife and fork. A regular here it. There is this restaurant Pat and I go to that serves a quite large wedge on a too small of a sized plate drizzle with a blue cheese dressing and a TON of crispy bacon and diced tomato. It’s a meal in and of itself and I order it every time. With a side of filet. 😉

But at home, I don’t make wedge salads nearly as often. Why is that? Well, I’m about to change that right now and it all begins with this loaded wedge salad with black pepper buttermilk dressing.

First of all this dressing. It’s like ranch dressing only minus the herbs and doubling-up on the black pepper. It’s creamy and light and savory. A nod to a regular at dinner who puts a heathy (read: ridiculous) amount of black pepper on everything. With him in mind, I decided to ditch the herbs from my old-style buttermilk ranch recipe and swap in an obnoxious amount of black pepper. Then thinned it out with a touch more buttermilk than called for because this earns a repeat a creamy salad dressing that wavers on the side of being runny. And this buttermilk dressing certainly fits the bill.

For this Loaded Wedge Salad Set out:

for the dressing:

mayonnaise
sour cream
buttermilk
champagne vinegar (or white wine vinegar)
worcestershire
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper

for the salad:

bacon
iceberg
black pepper buttermilk dressing
tomatoes
hardboiled eggs
blue cheese
green onion

Make the black pepper buttermilk dressing.

Into a mixing bowl measure and add 1/2 cup mayonnaise, 1/4 cup of sour cream and then a 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, 1 tablespoon of champagne vinegar, a few splashes of Worcestershire (here’s my kitchen-made version incase you’re interested) and then pour in a 1/2 cup of buttermilk. Finally add in 3/4 teaspoon of coarsely ground black pepper and whisk to combine. Next, cover tightly and refrigerate until ready to serve.

With this salad, any tomatoes will do! I’ve used chopped and seeded Roma tomatoes and cherry tomatoes before but if you can find some of these baby heirloom tomatoes, USE them! They’re savory!

Next blue cheese. I looove blue cheese. Like a lot. That’s most likely my go-to of all the cheeses. For this salad, I’m using a smoked blue cheese, but you can use whatever blue cheese you like. Or sharp cheddar even.

Next, cut the iceberg into equal sized wedges. If making this loaded wedge salad in advance, I highly recommend using a plastic serrated knife. Doing this will keep your lettuce from turning that rusty brown color.

Next, arrange onto a platter and drizzle with as much of the black pepper buttermilk dressing as your heart desires. Because why the heck not? Then top with tomato halves, crumbled hardboiled egg, blue cheese, bacon and sliced green onions and then if you’re like someone at the table, even more black pepper.

Now serve with chicken, steak or pizza. This is a fork and knife salad so be sure to serve with utensils.