The BLT Bar: Makin’ Bacon for Family Meals & Parties

If you’ve never tried it, a BLT bar might be your new best friend – whether you’re looking for an easy family meal or a great way to entertain. Everyone loves this classic combination of flavors, and a BLT bar loaded with delicious options lets kids and adults alike build their own sandwiches and have fun doing it.

What You Need

Creating a BLT bar is easy! You’ll want to offer a few different kinds of each of the basic sandwich components. Make sure to include a variety of whatever looks freshest, most interesting, and most colorful. Choose some hearty sliced breads for toasting (set the toaster on the table as part of the spread) and some classic sandwich rolls – the type that can hold up under the stack of sandwich fixins it’s about to be stuffed with. Here’s the list:

• Crispy Bacon: Try hickory smoked bacon, peppered, maple flavored, turkey bacon, and plant-based bacon if you want a vegan option. Pro tip: Roast the bacon in the oven on rimmed sheet pans (1 lb bacon per pan) at 375° for about 15 minutes.
• Fresh Lettuce: Consider butter lettuce, romaine, curly or red leaf lettuce.
• Tomatoes: Go for the ripest, prettiest you can find – Roma tomatoes, beefsteak, heirloom or Creole tomatoes.
• Bread: Try Kaiser rolls, crusty white or whole-grain sliced bread and New Orleans style French bread, if you can get it.
• Creamy Condiments: Use your favorite kinds of Blue Plate® Mayonnaise straight from the jar and whip up some tasty spreads, too – like Lemony Mayonnaise,  Sriracha Comeback Sauce and Zesty Cajun Mayo.
• Extra Toppings & Sides: Set out avocado slices, sliced cheeses, sliced onions, salt & pepper, pickles and potato chips.

How to Assemble a BLT Bar

The great thing about a BLT bar is it can be prepped mostly ahead of time and served at room temperature. Here’s how it goes: Cook the bacon and arrange it on a platter on paper towels. Mix up your mayonnaise spreads and refrigerate until the last minute. When it’s time to eat, slice and arrange the tomatoes and lettuce on platters, set out the condiments, fire up the toaster and ring the dinner bell!

How do you BLT? There are so many ways.

Why not try a combination of hickory smoked bacon, beefsteak tomato, romaine lettuce, cheddar cheese, and Zesty Cajun Mayo on toasted sourdough? Or peppered bacon, Roma tomato, curly leaf lettuce, and straight up Blue Plate® Mayonnaise on a Kaiser roll? The possibilities are truly endless. And delicious!