Grilled Bacon BLTs

Hey folks, the newest episode of The Recipe with Kenji and Deb is out, and it's about BLTs. I had a blast recording it with my Deb Perelman from Smitten Kitchen. BLTs are one of the few areas where we seem to be in pretty close alignment. Like a good Caprese salad or a Schubert melody, the trick is start with somethig nice and don't mess with it too much.

Here's my BLT manifesto, which I wrote many years ago for Serious Eats.

Listen to the newest BLT episode of The Recipe with Kenji and Deb (@kenjianddeb)here:

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Every recipe I publish here is personally tested, tasted, and approved.

What I like about this recipe:

YIELD:

Makes 1 sandwiches

ACTIVE TIME:

15 minutes

TOTAL TIME:

15 minutes (plus time to preheat the grill)

Notes: This recipe is a rough riff on Deb Perelman’s recipe on Bon Appetit:https://studio.youtube.com/channel/UCqqJQ_cXSat0KIAVfIfKkVA

Ingredients

4 to 6 slices thick-cut bacon

2 slices sourdough bread

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

Some samba Oelek or sriracha or other hot sauce to taste

A few thick slices of ripe tomato

Flaky sea salt

A few leaves of iceberg or romaine lettuce

1. Preheat a grill to medium heat (I used a half chimney of charcoal). Arrange the bacon strips directly over the coals and cook them, flipping occasionally and moving them off heat if the flareups become too intense. When you see rendered fat start to pool on the top surface of the bacon, use the bread slices to occasionally soak it up, then transfer the bread to the grill, fat-soaked-side-down and continue to cook, using the bread to occasionally soak up rendered fat, and turning and rotating everything until the bacon is crisp and the bread is evenly toasted, 4 to 6 minutes total. Transfer everything to a plate or tray as it finishes cooking. (If making multiple sandwiches cook everything in succession).

2. To assemble sandwiches, spread mayonnaise and a little bit of hot sauce on the inner surface of each slice of bread. Deb suggests layering the tomato in between lettuce and bacon, though personally I prefer having direct tomato-to-mayo contact. You can stack your sandwiches however you like, but make sure to season those tomato slices with a sprinkle of flaky sea salt!