Simple Vegetarian Wedge Salad Without Blue Cheese

Traditionally slathered in creamy blue cheese dressing and topped with even more blue cheese crumbles and bacon bits – it it even possible to make a classically-flavoured wedge salad while making it vegetarian (and omitting the blue cheese)? As it turns out – yes, it is!

This recipe – topped with my cheesy (yet vegan) miso tahini dressing and crispy shitake mushrooms in lieu of bacon bits – checks all of the same boxes as a traditional wedge while keeping it friendly for those non-meat-eaters among us. And with one simple omission – it can also be made completely vegan!

How to Make Wedge Salad Without Using Blue Cheese

A traditional iceberg wedge salad contains a few elements: blue cheese crumbles, bacon bits, red onion, breadcrumbs and diced tomatoes all slathered in blue cheese dressing.

To make a vegetarian version without blue cheese) that stays true to the original, I needed to think of some swaps for the bacon bits – and the cheese.

For bacon bits, I was inspired by my pasta all’amatriciana recipe where I brown shitake mushrooms until golden and crispy – and they taste shockingly like bacon. Super salty, savoury and umami-rich.

The blue cheese dressing swap was a bit easier – my miso tahini dressing works beautifully. Tahini gives it a great creamy quality and the miso paste is funky and cheesy – which gives it a similar flavour.

If you’re not after a vegan wedge salad, then you can swap the blue cheese crumbles for some feta – and then you’re sorted!

So, start your salad by seasoning your tomatoes – a similar step I use in my tabouleh recipe where I like to drain some of the excess moisture from the tomatoes.

Simply set a fine mesh sieve over a bowl, add in your tomatoes, and season generously with salt. Let them drip there while you get the rest of your elements together.

Now it’s time to brown the mushrooms! This is slightly time-consuming, but you won’t get the right results if you take a shortcut and skip out on properly browning them.

So, add a bit of olive oil to a large skillet and set it over medium-high heat. Once shimmering, add your mushrooms and a generous pinch of salt.

Cook the mushrooms for about 8-10 minutes – during this time they will release a lot of their moisture, shrink in size and begin to take on a deep golden brown colour. Remove them from the pan once you reach that stage.

To the same pan, add a clove of minced garlic and cook just until it’s super fragrant – 30 seconds or so.

Then, add in some panko breadcrumbs and another pinch of salt. Cook for a minute or two longer, just until the breadcrumbs begin to take on some colour.

Remove the breadcrumbs from the heat and stir in some nutritional yeast flakes to up the cheesy, umami flavours.

You are now ready to assemble the salad! First, remove the outer leaves from a head of iceberg lettuce and cut it in quarters through the root end.

Set the wedges on a serving dish and drizzle with the dressing. Top them with your crispy mushrooms, the seasoned tomatoes, some diced red onion, your garlic breadcrumbs and – if desired – some crumbled feta.

All you need to do now is go ahead and serve immediately!

Making a blue-cheese-free version of a classic iceberg wedge salad is not difficult. And you can hit all of the same notes as you would if you were following a more “traditional” recipe!

Are you after a great wedge salad recipe? Have any questions? Let me know in the comments!