Broccoli Salad
Helping Our Kids Grow (local church cookbook) Copyright 2000
4 c. broccoli, uncooked, chopped
½ cup. onion, chopped
8 slices bacon, cooked
1 c. mayonnaise
½ c. sugar
2 T. vinegar
½ c. raisins
½ c. cheddar cheese, shredded
Combine broccoli, onion, and bacon. Mix dressing, add to broccoli. Add raisins and cheddar cheese. Refrigerate.
Now this is a nice, concise recipe. I bet most people don’t even need a recipe for broccoli salad but this is the first time I ever made it. It's one of my favorites and super simple. I had some broccoli that was looking for work and I was making bacon for something else so on a whim, I threw this together. I wonder how this salad was invented. Pork fat, mayonnaise, sugar, cheese – what else could you possibly add to broccoli to cancel out it’s health benefits?
This is from one of your typical local fundraiser cookbooks - there were four variations of this broccoli salad. That's one of the things I like about these cookbooks, comparing the variations. For the broccoli salad, there were two recipes with raisins, two without. One with sunflower seeds. One with Miracle Whip, three with mayonnaise. Two with red onion, two with unspecified onion. I'm sure each woman thinks her recipe is the best. I'm sure they're all good.
I've had this recipe in my looseleaf travel notebook (recipes that go on vacation with us) for years and just made it for a lobster supper at our neighbor's house. There were four adults. I made one recipe. There wasn't enough. Be warned people: make two, three, or four recipes, depending on how many people and whether others are bringing dishes or not. In my case, the lobsters, crab claws, and our neighbor's dessert were "it". My salad needed to be much larger. Everyone loved it.
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