Keto Spinach Salad {2g net carbs}

This recipe for Keto Spinach Salad with a Warm Candied Bacon Dressing is absolutely fabulous. It’s a healthy salad with less that 2g net carbs.

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💭 Where did this salad come from?
🥬 Spinach
🍄 Mushrooms
🧅 Red Onions
🥓 Bacon
🥚 Hard Boiled Eggs
🤔 Is it Keto?
Where to buy Swerve 💰
⏲️ Time Saving Tips

Hello guys and goils 👋

Today I’m going to share a recipe for Keto Spinach Salad with a warm bacon dressing that is so good, it will knock your socks off. It’s a nearly zero-carb salad with salty bacon, nutritious spinach, mushrooms and onions, and a warm Dijon dressing that is to die for.

So if you love Spinach half as much as Popeye, you are in the right place.

💭 Where did this salad come from?

It’s a bit murky. But food historians think that spinach salad with mushrooms, red onions, hard-boiled eggs, and a warm Dijon Bacon dressing came to America with German immigrants. They had a long history of composing simple salads out of dandelions, bacon drippings and vinegar that were served with poached or hard-boiled eggs. And when they came here, the dandelions were replaced by spinach because…

Americans don't really eat flowers.

Let’s talk Ingredients.

🥬 Spinach

This nutritional powerhouse is a leafy green that is chocked full of vitamins and antioxidants. It’s got Vitamins A, C, and K1 plus Folic Acid, Iron, Magnesium, Potassium, and Calcium. And it’s got a lot of fiber, so it’s good for digestive health as well. It has so much fiber, in fact, that the net carbs in spinach are zero.

So it’s a free food.

🍄 Mushrooms

These members of the fungus family are like Jose Feliciano; ya got no complaints. In addition to being Keto, they are low-sodium, low-calorie, low-sugar, fat-free, and cholesterol-free. (They are all of the best lows and frees.) And they are jam-packed with fiber, B vitamins, copper, and potassium.

They add a nice umami flavor to the salad.

🧅 Red Onions

These flavorful vegetables have been used since ancient times to treat ailments like headaches and heart disease. In fact, the antioxidants in red onions are believed to prevent Cancer and Diabetes and increase bone density. As a diabetic I can safely say, do whatever it takes not to get this disease.

If it takes eating a boatload of onions, then so be it.

🥓 Bacon

Ahh bacon, so good for Keto dieters, so bad for everyone else. The high-fat content is frowned upon on high-carb low-fat diets but encouraged on low-carb high-fat diets. It is very processed though, so you need to watch out for chemicals and sugar in the ingredients.

But it adds a great flavor to the keto spinach salad.

🥚 Hard Boiled Eggs

Eggs are a great protein source that contains high levels of HDL Cholesterol (that's the good kind!). The white is high in protein, vitamins, and minerals while the yolk has essential fatty acids and fat-soluble vitamins. So eggs are used in Keto cookery quite a bit, both as a source of protein and fat and as a natural binding agent in low carb baked goods.

Adding hard-boiled transforms it from a side salad to a meal.

🤔 Is it Keto?

The only part of a classic Spinach Salad that is not Keto-friendly is the sugar used in the warm bacon dressing. But that is easily fixed by substituting an erythritol sweetener like Swerve in the dressing. They make a granular, powdered, and brown sugar version, so I use Swerve in nearly everything. You can find Swerve in most big grocery stores or online on Amazon.

It’s a 0 net carb, 0 calorie sweetener, so you can eat it guilt-free.

Where to buy Swerve 💰

⏲️ Time Saving Tips

I recommend hard boiling the eggs in an Instant Pot, because the shells nearly fall off when it's time to peel them. It takes a chore and turns it into a joy.
This recipe calls for candied bacon for added fanciness, but you can skip the step of coating the bacon in sweetener if you like, and just bake it in the regular way. It doesn't really add much prep time though, so I recommend that you candy the bacon.
Spinach grows in sandy soil, so when you buy it in a bunch, you need to clean it very thoroughly. Submerge the spinach in water and give it a good shake to remove the sand. Repeat the process several times. Make sure to dry the leaves with paper towels afterwards. You can also buy washed baby spinach in bags at the grocery store. It saves a lot of time and mess.
You can usually buy washed and pre-sliced mushrooms at the grocery store as well. I often choose sliced mushrooms to save time.
Both regular spinach and baby spinach work in this recipe. Baby spinach is thinner and less tough, so I usually choose it over regular spinach. And again, the bag of pre-washed baby spinach is very tempting.
You'll have some slices of candied bacon left over to eat on the sly. (The recipe takes over an hour- you'll need sustenance!) But trust me, they make the perfect sweet and salty snack.