Wedge Salad with Creamy Salad Dressing
This Overloaded Wedge Salad is the ultimate way to serve iceberg lettuce—chilled plates, a creamy homemade dressing, and all your favorite baked potato-style toppings like crispy bacon, cheese, tomatoes, and green onions. It’s quick to make, impressive to serve, and way better than you ever thought a “simple” lettuce wedge could be. Perfect as a side or light main!
This easy Wedge Salad recipe features a homemade creamy dressing and is loaded with all your favorite toppings. Learn exactly how to cut the perfect wedge, plus get delicious ingredient suggestions to make it your own. I used to wonder about wedge salads too. Why on earth would anyone serve a giant quarter of iceberg lettuce on a plate? It seemed almost lazy. Boy, was I wrong. After trying it, I quickly realized that a wedge salad is actually the absolute best way to serve crisp iceberg lettuce. This Overloaded Wedge Salad takes it to the next level — fresh, crunchy, and packed with flavor in every single bite.
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How to Cut a Wedge Salad:
- Start by removing the core: Rinse the entire head of iceberg lettuce under cold water. Hold the head with the core facing down and firmly slam the butt of the core onto the cutting board. This loosens the core. Flip it over, grab the core, and pull it straight out.
- Slice the head in half, then cut each half in half again to create four equal wedges.
- Place each wedge on a chilled plate with the cut side facing up.
Serving the lettuce as a wedge helps preserve its signature crispness in every bite. While many restaurants leave the core in to hold the wedge together, we prefer to remove it completely when plating individual salads. After all, nothing should be on the plate that isn’t fully edible!
Wedge Salad Recipe
- 1 cup low-calorie mayonnaise
- ½ cup low-fat milk
- ½ cup lite sour cream
- 1 clove garlic minced
- ½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 4 slices thick-cut bacon
- 1 tomato seeded and diced
- 2 green onions sliced
- 1 head iceberg lettuce
- ½ cup low-fat cheese grated
- red pepper flakes
How to make a Wedge Salad
Now it’s time to assemble your Overloaded Wedge Salads!
- Make the dressing: Add the first 7 ingredients to a food processor and blend until smooth and creamy. If the dressing is too thick, add a splash of extra milk and blend again until you reach your desired consistency.
- Chill the dressing: Transfer the dressing to a jar or bowl and place it in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. This allows the flavors to meld and makes the dressing nice and cold.
- Chill the plates: Place four salad plates in the freezer to chill while you prepare the rest of the ingredients. Cold plates keep the lettuce crisp and the dressing from warming up too quickly.
- Cook the bacon: While the dressing chills, cook the bacon until it’s nice and crispy. Once cooled, chop or crumble it into small pieces.
- Prepare the lettuce: Remove the core from the head of iceberg lettuce and cut it into four equal wedges (as shown in the cutting instructions).
- Assemble just before serving: Remove the chilled plates from the freezer. Place one lettuce wedge on each plate, cut side up. Generously spoon the cold creamy dressing over the top of each wedge, letting it drip down the sides.
- Load it up: Sprinkle each wedge with grated cheddar (or crumbled blue cheese), chopped bacon, diced tomatoes, sliced green onions, freshly cracked black pepper, and a pinch of red pepper flakes.
Serve immediately while everything is cold and crisp. This is where the magic happens — every bite is loaded with creamy, crunchy, savory goodness!
Our Favorite Wedge Salad Toppings
Our go-to ingredients for the perfect overloaded wedge salad are crispy chopped bacon, fresh diced tomatoes, sliced green onions, and either shredded cheddar or crumbled blue cheese. Finish it off with plenty of freshly cracked black pepper and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes for a little kick.
We love loading it up with all the classic toppings you’d find on a loaded baked potato — it’s what makes this salad so special and satisfying. Just be sure to dice the toppings small so they cling nicely to the wedge and complement the lettuce, rather than overpower it.
After all, we don’t want it looking like a Dr. Seuss village with toppings teetering precariously on top!
Creamy Wedge Salad Dressing
For the absolute creamiest dressing, we highly recommend using a food processor. It blends everything together perfectly for a smooth, restaurant-quality result.
- In the food processor, combine real mayonnaise, milk, and sour cream (either lite or full-fat — both work great).
- Season simply with garlic, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and plenty of black pepper. Add all the ingredients at once and blend until smooth and creamy.
Serving a crisp quarter head of iceberg lettuce on a chilled plate loaded with bacon, cheese, tomatoes, and green onions is a must try. We also serve crushed red pepper flakes on the side with freshly ground black pepper and salt for each guest to season individually.
Other Delicious Salad Recipes:
- Texas Summer Salad with Grilled Chicken and Fresh Jalapenos
- Feta Cheese, Cranberries and Pecan Green Spring Salad
- Southwestern Cobb salad with Chipotle Dressing
Ingredients
- 1 cup low-calorie mayonnaise
- 1/2 cup low-fat milk
- 1/2 cup lite sour cream
- 1 clove garlic minced
- 1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 4 slices thick-cut bacon
- 1 tomato seeded and diced
- 2 green onions sliced
- 1 head iceberg lettuce
- 1/2 cup low-fat cheese grated
- red pepper flakes
Instructions
- Place the first 7 ingredients in a food processor and blend to make the dressing. (extra milk can be added if needed for the desired consistency)
- Place the dressing. in the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes.
- Place four salad plates in freezer to chill
- Meanwhile, cook bacon until crisp, chop or break bacon into pieces
- Remove core from lettuce, cut into four wedges
- Just prior to serving, place one lettuce wedge on each chilled plate, spoon dressing over each wedge.
- Top with grated cheese, tomatoes, green onions and bacon pieces. Sprinkle with red pepper flakes (if using)
Nutrition
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