Bacon bleu cheese guacamole

Here in Cleveland, people utter the words bacon bleu cheese guacamole in hushed tones. Celebrity chef and Cleveland native Michael Symon featured this guacamole in a Food Network episode of The Best Thing I Ever Ate. The place where he sampled the guac? Lopez on Lee an unassuming restaurant in Cleveland Heights where Rick Bayless once donned the head chef hat.

I haven’t been to Lopez on Lee (the night Mr. Squid and I decided to go we ended up at a Cambodian restaurant instead). But as a guacamole fan, it’s easy to imagine how to pull off this recipe: good guac IMHO is a matter of mixing together half of your ingredients first while saving the other half to stir in. The half-and-half method makes for a creamy guac that still has chunks of flavor tucked inside.

Here’s how we make bacon bleu cheese guac at our house:

Recipe

Prep time: 15 minutes

Servings: 4 (easily doubled)

Ingredients

2 avocados

1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt or sour cream

4 strips bacon, cooked & crumbled

1/4 cup bleu cheese, crumbled

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 clove garlic, minced (optional)

1/2 serrano or jalapeno pepper, seeded & minced (optional of Sriracha)

Salt to taste

Directions:

1. In bowl, add the inside from one of the avocados and the Greek yogurt. Mash and blend using a fork.
2. Mix in the cumin, pepper, garlic, and half of the bleu cheese; combine until smooth.
3. Slice the other avocado into small pieces, then stir into the smooth mixture along with the bacon and the rest of the bleu cheese crumbles.
4. Adjust seasoning and serve with tortilla chips.

Kids’ reactions:

My teen liked the pungent flavor of the bleu cheese mixed with smoky bacon and creamy avocado. My younger two sampled small tastes but weren’t real anxious to try more. This guacamole is definitely for more grown-up taste buds. If you’re looking for a 4th of July showstopper, this is it.