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Wedge Salad With Creamy Parmesan Dressing

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If you love classic wedge salad at restaurants, you’ll love making your own at home! Our easy wedge salad recipe has a creamy parmesan dressing + fresh goodies you’ll LOVE!

wedge salad with parmesan dressing, bacon, and tomatoes on a white plate

I’ve been combing through our archives over the last few months to see what yummy recipes could use a little update. We’ve been blogging since 2008(!!!), so I’ve had over 1,000 posts to work through!

It’s been a little like catching up with old friends! (“Oh, I remember that!”), and it’s given me the chance to enjoy some classic faves like this Wedge Salad with Parmesan Dressing. I love a good wedge salad!

So, what’s so special about wedge salad? The real magic of this simple salad is in the presentation. Instead of a bowl of lettuce with toppings mixed in, the salad is presented in its signature wedge shape with the toppings clearly visible on top of the lettuce wedges. The end result is striking, and a fun way to mix things up from a regular side salad. It’s one of my favorite salads to order at restaurants!

Besides its signature shape, a wedge salad is allllll about the delicious toppings! A lot of wedge salads are made with blue cheese dressing, but if (like me), you’re not fan, you can make our wedge salad recipe without blue cheese dressing!

From our easy parmesan dressing, to crispy, salty bacon, and fresh goodies, every single bite is full of flavor.

Here’s what you need to make our classic wedge salad recipe…

ingredients for wedge salad

Simple Ingredients For This Wedge Salad Recipe:

  • A Head of Iceberg Lettuce. Wedge salad works best with crunchy iceberg lettuce. Other varieties of lettuce don’t have the same distinctively round shape, which you need to create a good wedge. We recommend iceberg wedge salad, all the way!
  • Parmesan Dressing. I prefer this to blue cheese! Our parmesan dressing is made from mayonnaise, plain Greek yogurt (or sour cream!), parmesan cheese, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, salt, black pepper, and garlic powder. Easy, right?
  • Crisp Bacon. Salty, smoky, crispy crumbled bacon adds such a delicious note of flavor to a wedge salad! If you’re vegetarian, you can skip the bacon crumbles, but otherwise, it’s a MUST!
  • Tomatoes. Any ripe, sweet tomatoes will do! You can use chopped Roma tomatoes, or halved or quartered cherry tomatoes. I love using a mix of yellow and red tomatoes for an extra pop of color. If you’re using extra juicy tomatoes, you can seed them before dicing them so they don’t add extra liquid to the salad. But it’s totally up to you!
  • Chives. I love finishing a wedge salad with some snipped chives. A little fresh herb action makes anything look prettier!
  • Extras. Then, you can add crumbled blue cheese, freshly cracked pepper, red onion, etc.

Don’t know how to cut lettuce for wedge salad?

We’ve got a quick tutorial below that will walk you through everything you need to know, from how to prep the lettuce, cut it into perfect wedges, clean lettuce for wedge salad, and more.

lettuce wedges on a white plate surrounded by wedge salad toppings

How To MAke This Yummy Wedge Salad, Step By Step:

For The Parmesan Dressing:

  1. Combine. In a small bowl, combine mayonnaise, yogurt, parmesan cheese, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Whisk to combine.
  2. Taste & Adjust. Taste the dressing and add more salt, pepper, lemon juice or parmesan as desired.
  3. Thicken, If Desired. If the dressing seems too thick, you can thin it out with some water, milk, or buttermilk 1 teaspoon at a time, until you reach your desired consistency.
  4. Serve and Store. Use right away or chill to store. Dressing will keep in the fridge up to 1 week. For best results, make the dressing a few hours (up to 1 day) in advance to let the flavors develop.

Make Your Salad:

  1. Wash & Prep The Lettuce. Start by washing the outside of the whole head of lettuce in cold water. Remove the outer layers of lettuce (any outer leaves that looks wilted, damaged, or extra dirty) and transfer to a cutting board. Trim off the tip of the stem, if needed (this sometimes looks an almost rusty-brown). Don’t cut off the whole stem end, just the rusty-looking tip. Use a long knife to cut the lettuce in half top to bottom, through the stem end. Cut each half into 2-3 wedges (3 for a large head of lettuce, or 2 for small). Gently rinse each wedge of lettuce, letting the water run between the layers of lettuce to rinse them out. Drain extra water and set aside.
  2. Build Your Salads. For each salad, drizzle a wedge of lettuce with parmesan dressing, sprinkle with crispy bacon pieces, tomatoes, and chives, as desired. Feel free to garnish with extra salt, pepper, or some blue cheese.
classic wedge salad with bacon

FAQ + Tips And Tricks For The Best Wedge Salad:

Can I Use Another Kind Of Lettuce? The best lettuce for wedge salad is iceberg lettuce. It’s got the most uniform round shape and crisp texture, so it holds its shape in neat wedges. I love other kinds of lettuce, but they just don’t work the way iceberg lettuce does for traditional wedge salad.

What’s On Outback’s Wedge Salad? Outback uses a very similar method and recipe to ours! Their salad is made from iceberg lettuce, blue cheese dressing, smoky bacon, tomatoes, red onion, extra blue cheese crumbles, and is finished with a balsamic reduction/glaze drizzled over the whole thing.

What Other Dressing Can I Use For Wedge Salad? If our parmesan salad dressing doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, you can go with store-bought or homemade blue cheese dressing, our ranch dressing, or even our Caesar dressing.

What Main Dish Goes Well With Wedge Salad? Wedge salad is the perfect side dish to go with steakhouse and grilled favorites! That could be an amazing steak, grilled or roasted chicken, slow cooker ribs, meatloaf, and more! It’s a great salad for a dinner party or fancy night in.

Cook That Bacon! You can absolutely cook your bacon in a nonstick skillet or cast-iron skillet on the stove over medium-high heat until it’s crispy. I love to bake my bacon on a baking sheet at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes or so, then crumbling it into bacon bits. (I often batch cook bacon when I do this, then freeze it for later! It makes for easy salads on other nights!)

⭐ Don’t forget to leave a star review and comment below when you make our Wedge Salad recipe. I can’t wait to hear how it goes!

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wedge salad with parmesan dressing, bacon, and tomatoes on a white plate

Wedge Salad with Creamy Parmesan Dressing


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  • Author: Emily Dixon, One Lovely Life
  • Total Time: 20 minutes
  • Yield: 6 servings 1x
  • Diet: Gluten Free

Description

If you love classic wedge salad at restaurants, you’ll love making your own at home! Our easy wedge salad recipe has a creamy parmesan dressing and delicious toppings like juicy tomatoes, smoky bacon, and fresh herbs. 


Ingredients

Scale

For the Parmesan Dressing:

  • 1/2 cup mayonnaise
  • 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt (or sour cream)
  • 1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
  • 1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
  • 1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

For The Wedge Salad

  • 1 head iceberg lettuce, cut into 46 wedges
  • 46 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled
  • 1/21 cup diced tomatoes
  • 1 Tablespoon minced chives
  • Optional: crumbled blue cheese, salt, and pepper for garnish

Instructions

For The Parmesan Dressing:

  1. Combine. In a small bowl, combine mayonnaise, yogurt, parmesan cheese, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Whisk to combine.
  2. Taste & Adjust. Taste the dressing and add more salt, pepper, lemon juice or parmesan as desired.
  3. Think If Desired. If the dressing seems too thick, you can thin it out with some water, milk, or buttermilk 1 teaspoon at a time, until you reach your desired consistency.
  4. Serve and Store. Use right away or chill to store. Dressing will keep in the fridge up to 1 week. For best results, make the dressing a few hours (up to 1 day) in advance to let the flavors develop.

Prep The Lettuce:

  1. Wash The Lettuce. Start by washing the outside of the lettuce.
  2. Remove the outer layers of lettuce (any outer leaves that looks wilted, damaged, or extra dirty).
  3. Trim off the tip of the stem, if needed (this sometimes looks an almost rusty-brown). Don’t cut off the whole stem end, just the rusty-looking tip.
  4. Use a long knife to cut the lettuce in half top to bottom, through the stem end.
  5. Cut each half into 2-3 wedges (3 for a large head of lettuce, or 2 for small).
  6. Gently rinse each wedge of lettuce, letting the water run between the layers of lettuce to rinse them out. Drain extra water and set aside.
  7. Serve or store. Use the wedges right away for wedge salad, or store in a zip-top bag in the fridge with a paper towel to absorb any excess liquid.

For The Wedge Salad:

  1. Build Your Salads. For each salad, drizzle a wedge of lettuce with parmesan dressing, sprinkle with bacon, tomatoes, and chives, as desired. Feel free to garnish with extra salt, pepper, or some blue cheese.

Notes

If you’re not planning to serve all the salads at once, just store the wedges of lettuce in a large zip top bag in the fridge. Store the dressing and toppings separately so the lettuce doesn’t get soggy.

  • Prep Time: 20 minutes
  • Category: Salad
  • Method: No-Cook
  • Cuisine: American

Originally shared September 2012. Fully updated May 2023.

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6 Comments

  1. I have been looking for a good parmesan dressing to redefine for my blog. I am going to use yours as a starting point and make additions per three other recipes. Thank you so much for having a delicious sounding parmesan dressing. I’ll let you know what I think.

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