The best B L T you’ll ever eat. Yup.

Yeah… you’re gonna want to sit down for this one.  I’m about to get real serious here.BLT.The BLT is a beloved sandwich.  It’s simple, it’s eaten all during the summertime, when the tomatoes are perfect…and people are really particular about the way they like their BLT’s.  I’ve never really been a huge BLT fan to be honest.  It’s just not something that excites me.  But when I created the Candied Bacon recipe the other day, my mind just went directly here.And hot damn, I’m so glad it did.

This is the best BLT you will ever eat.  There I said it.  I ain’t scurred.  And I had two Droege boys agree with me.  My husband, Other Brother and I stood around the counter and ate these today… and the room was silent, apart from the moans and yummy noises that escaped our mouths. We just kept looking at each other like we knew we were a part of something huge.

OK.  That may have been too dramatic but I’m not far off from reality here.

You really have to make sure you’re using top notch ingredients to have it be as good as it should be.  Your bacon needs to be thick cut and high quality.  It just does.  The texture (and sound!) you get from biting down onto the thick, crispy candied bacon is unbelievable.

Your tomato must be fresh.  And only from a summer garden.  I’m sorry.  It just does.

And please be sure to not only get good, fresh and soft onion rolls, but follow my directions on toasting and buttering them.

If you don’t listen to all of those and any further details, then you may as well not make this sandwich.  And you know I’m usually not picky about my recipes, so you can trust me that it matters here.

This sandwich is just so damn good, y’all.  Like… too good.  Suspiciously good.

I mean… I will be full for days after eating this bad boy, but damnit I don’t care.  It was worth every single calorie and inch it took up inside my tummy.

You can make the aioli days ahead of time and store, covered, in the fridge…

ROASTED GARLIC-TARRAGON-BASIL AIOLI
(recipe makes roughly 1/3 cup of aioli…enough for 3-4 sandwiches, depending on how thick you slather)

In a blender combine the following…
1 raw egg yolk, room temperature 
1 bulb roasted garlic, cooled
about 1/3 cup each fresh tarragon leaves and basil leaves (a small handful)
juice of 1 lemon
big fat squirt of dijon mustard


Turn the blender on and start to blend the ingredients, scraping down the leaves from the side of the blender occasionally.

Once it’s mixed enough, with the herbs chopped fairly well, start to drizzle in your extra virgin olive oil.

With the blender on, take off the little blender top to reveal the hole and very slowly drizzle in extra virgin olive oil, drop by drop, stopping to scrape down the blender when needed.  You will most likely go through about 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil.  But it’s highly important to do it while blending and to do it very, very slowly… or else you won’t get a proper emulsion and it will break on you.*

If this all sounds too complicated for you (trust me, it’s truly not so hard!!…just takes patience), then follow this link to an old post with an aioli cheat recipe with the same exact flavors.

Then make your candied bacon.  See recipe post HERE.

Slit an onion roll in half and butter the insides.  Grill or use a saucepan to toast the buttered side of the buns, and make sure to flip them to heat the whole bun.

Slather each bun half with some of your aioli.

Then layer down 2-3 pieces of candied bacon that you’ve broken in half.

Top with 1-2 thick slices of a raw garden tomato (in season only!!!!).  Season with kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper.

Top with a large handful of baby arugula leaves.

…and then more bacon.  2-3 more slices if you’d like.  But you definitely want bacon on both the top and the bottom of the sandwich.

Place other bun half on top.

Smush.  Take time to note the delightful sound it makes.

Eat.

Enjoy.

Lick lips.

Thank me.

(*tips on if your aioli breaks- If your sauce happens to break and you can’t get it to emulsify, you can try to save it by hand.  Crack another egg yolk into a bowl and whisk a bit, then slowly, drop by drop, add your broken sauce.  Re-season if necessary, and thin out with a bit of water if it’s too thick now.)