BLT Salad with Jalapeno Aioli -- #recipe by @Leslie Budewitz

LESLIE BUDEWITZ: I love discovering new dishes when we travel, then recreating them at home. I also love exploring old buildings given new life. When Mr. Right and I were in Hilo, Hawai’i last winter, we scratched both itches with a delicious dinner at Temple, a bistro-casual restaurant in an old Masonic temple on the edge of downtown.

He had oysters and ahi carpaccio, that is, thinly sliced. I had the BLT Salad with Jalapeno Aioli, and knew right away that I wanted to recreate it at home. Some readers and friends wonder how to do that. Here’s one illustration.

The first step for me was to identify the ingredients, made easy in this case because the menu was very specific. Essentially, the salad is a deconstruction of a BLT—the sandwich reimagined, with a few surprising additions like the jalapeno aioli and the pumpkin seeds. You might be surprised by pumpkin seeds, but winter squash and their seeds are common in Hawaiian cooking.

A few shots from the Hilo Saturday Market

Next, I looked at how the salad was constructed. The greens were tossed with the aioli and placed in the bottom of a large bowl, with the rest of the ingredients on top.

The bacon was the biggest challenge. It was chunks, maybe 3/4 to an inch square. It appeared to be slices that had been stacked and cooked. Stacked and cut, I wondered, or stacked, cooked, and then cut? We bake bacon, rather than fry it, so it was easy to try both on the same pan. What worked best was to stack 3 slices, press them a bit to stick the slices together, then cut them, before baking.

And the bread? Croutonish, but large pieces with a crunchy-soft texture. I suspected a classic country bread, with a hint of rye to it—I’m no bread expert and don’t bake much bread these days, but I used to make a country loaf with a little rye and recognized the flavor and texture. I suspected the croutons had been cut and baked that day; any earlier and they would have dried out. Before I made the salad, I happened to be in Costco and spotted their country loaf. We don’t buy bread often, but that loaf called to me. It was so perfectly what I remembered that I suspect the Temple kitchen staff shop at Costco, too! 

What was the grated cheese? I didn’t remember, but found the answer in Temple’s online menu: smoked gouda. My grocery had smoked gouda with chunks of bacon. Sold! Any semi-firm cheese you like will do—we’ve strayed a far piece from the classic BLT by adding cheese, so have what you like! Remember that a semi-firm cheese like gouda will grate more easily if you toss it in the freezer for 15-20 minutes first. 

Now for the jalapeno aioli. I found a recipe online for a cilantro-jalapeno aioli and adapted it. I can’t swear it’s exactly what I had in Hilo, but so close and so yummy that I’m sold. Jalapenos are the mildest of the “hot” peppers, but their heat level can vary, so taste with care as you make the dressing and use only what you and your diners will like. 

We loved our winter sojourn in the Sandwich Islands—the perfect place to discover this dish—but I’m glad we don’t have to wait for another trip to enjoy this salad. And I’m delighted to share it with you.

PS: I finally figured out how to embed a PDF of the recipe for easy printing. 

Scroll down to the 💕 for the link. 

BLT Salad with Jalapeno Aioli 

Amounts make dressing for 4 servings, meal-sized salad for 2. Use leftover dressing for another salad later in the week, with freshly cooked bacon and fresh croutons. 

For the aioli: 

3/4 cup mayonnaise

½ cup firmly packed fresh cilantro leaves

1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and diced

1 ½ garlic cloves, sliced or roughly chopped 

1-1/2 tablespoons lime juice 

1 teaspoon ground cumin

½ teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste

For the salad:

2 slices country bread (or so—loaf slices vary)

1/4 cup pumpkin seeds 

4-6 slices bacon

4 cups mixed greens

1 cup grape or cherry tomatoes, halved

3 ounces smoked gouda, grated

To make the dressing: 

Blend mayonnaise, cilantro, jalapeño, garlic, lime juice, cumin, and salt in a blender or food processor until smooth. (I used an immersion blender.) Refrigerate about 1 hour, to allow flavors to blend. 

To make the salad: 

Heat oven to 325 degrees. Cut or tear the bread into large croutons, at least 1" square or larger. Toast bread and pumpkin seeds at different ends of one pan or in separate pans for about 10 minutes. (Using separate pans allows you to judge the doneness separately and remove one ingredient from the oven if it’s ready before the other.) Remember that you want your croutons firm but not crispy.

Increase the heat to 350 degrees. Stack, press, and cut the slices into 1" squares. Bake on a baking sheet lined with parchment until crisp, 10-15 minutes. 

Place greens in individual salad bowls and toss with dressing. Top with the croutons, seeds, bacon chunks, tomatoes, and gouda. Spoon a little additional dressing on top, if you’d like.

And enjoy your deconstructed trip to Hawaii!

Do you have a favorite dish you've encountered while traveling or in a restaurant close to home that you've been inspired to make at home? Do tell!

💕 Click here for a free printable PDF! 

At Seattle Spice Shop, owner Pepper Reece has whipped up the perfect blend of food, friends, and flavor. But the sweet smell of success can be hazardous . . .  

Spring is in full bloom in Pike Place Market, where Pepper is celebrating lavender’s culinary uses and planning a festival she hopes will become an annual event. When her friend Lavender Liz offers to share tips for promoting the much-loved—and occasionally maligned—herb, Pepper makes a trek to the charming town of Salmon Falls. But someone has badly damaged Liz’s greenhouse, throwing a wrench in the feisty grower’s plans for expansion. Suspicions quickly focus on an employee who’s taken to the hills. 

Then Liz is found dead among her precious plants, stabbed by a pruning knife. In Salmon Falls, there’s one in every pocket. 

Pepper digs in, untangling the tensions between Liz and a local restaurateur with eyes on a picturesque but neglected farm, a jealous ex-boyfriend determined to profit from Liz’s success, and a local growers’ cooperative. She’s also hot on the scent of a trail of her own, sniffing out the history of her sweet dog, Arf. 

As Pepper’s questions threaten to unearth secrets others desperately want to keep buried, danger creeps closer to her and those she loves. Can Pepper root out the killer, before someone nips her in the bud?

Available at Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Books-A-Million * Bookshop.org * and your local booksellers!

ALL GOD'S SPARROWS AND OTHER STORIES: A STAGECOACH MARY FIELDS COLLECTION, now available in in paperback and ebook 

Take a step back in time with All God's Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection of historical short mysteries, featuring the Agatha-Award winning "All God's Sparrows" and other stories imagining the life of real-life historical figure Mary Fields, born into slavery in 1832, during the last thirty years of her life, in Montana. Out September 17, 2024 from Beyond the Page Publishing.  

“Finely researched and richly detailed, All God’s Sparrows and Other Stories is a wonderful collection. I loved learning about this fascinating woman . . . and what a character she is! Kudos to Leslie Budewitz for bringing her to life so vividly.” —Kathleen Grissom, New York Times bestselling author of Crow Mary

Available at Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Books-A-Million * Bookshop.org * and your local booksellers!

Leslie Budewitz is the author of the Spice Shop Mysteries set in Seattle's Pike Place Market, and the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries, set in NW Montana. As Alicia Beckman, she writes moody, standalone suspense, most recently Blind Faith. She is the winner of Agatha Awards in three categories: Best Nonfiction (2011), Best First Novel (2013), and Best Short Story (2018). Her latest books are To Err is Cumin, the 8th Spice Shop Mystery and All God's Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection, in September 2024. Watch for Lavender Lies Bleeding, the 9th Spice Shop Mystery, on July 15, 2025.

A past president of Sisters in Crime and former national board member of Mystery Writers of America, Leslie lives in northwest Montana with her husband, a musician and doctor of natural medicine, and their cat, an avid bird-watcher.

Swing by Leslie's website and join the mailing list for her seasonal newsletter. And join her on Facebook where she shares book news and giveaways from her writer friends, and talks about food, mysteries, and the things that inspire her.