More of our favorite pesto filled dishes
The Very Best BLT Sandwich Ever
This BLT is perfect for any time of day, with its heavenly bacon, fresh lettuce and tomato oozing with warm basil pesto and bright yellow egg yolk. While any fresh, ripe tomato can replace the heirloom variety in the recipe, we suggest you gobble up as many heirlooms you can get your hands on while they are still in your gardens, or local farmers markets. For more fresh tomato recipes, be sure to check out our Best Tomato Salad, Grilled Skirt Steak with Blistered Tomatoes and Burrata or our Spinach Orzo Salad With Feta, Tomatoes and a Basil Dressing.
Ingredients You’ll Need To Make The Ultimate BLT
Lettuce: while we love romaine lettuce—probably the most classic of BLT lettuce choices—spicy fresh arugula makes for a more exciting, less watery choice. For sandwich-making purposes, it’s just way better.
Tomatoes: the “heirloom” part of heirloom tomatoes refers to the seed the tomato was grown from. Heirloom tomatoes are grown from seeds were favored by farmers for their deep, sweet flavors. Delicate, colorful and sweet, heirloom tomatoes are a summertime treat—the best of the best that tomato season has to offer.
Bacon: applewood smoked bacon, to be exact. All you have to do is cook it to crispy perfection.
Mayo + homemade pesto: mayo is the classic BLT condiment, and we like to add a little Homemade Pesto to the mix, too. Since basil is in season right along with those heirloom tomatoes, it just made sense to add basil pesto our perfect BLT recipe
Bread: the very best bread for BLTs is ciabatta, hands down. With its craggy crumb, ciabatta holds onto the mayonnaise and pesto that it is slathered with, and still has enough sponginess left over to absorb juicy tomatoes and a runny egg yolk, too.
A fried egg: because fried eggs—with crispy edges and perfectly runny insides—make everything better.
How to Make A Perfect Heirloom Tomato BLT With Fried Egg
Fry the bacon. Fry it in a hot pan until it’s nice and crispy, and let it rest on a paper towel-lined plate while you do the rest of your BLT prep.
Toast the ciabatta bread in the oven. Just until it’s warm and slightly crusty—we’re going for a bit of warmth and texture.
Add the spreads. Cover the warmed bread with mayo and pesto.
Assemble! Layer bacon, arugula and sliced tomatoes onto the mayonnaise-and-pesto dressed bread.
Fry your eggs. We recommend cooking the eggs over medium, so the yolks aren’t completely set and you get a juicy bite when the yolk runs into the other sandwich ingredients.
Finish the sandwich. Slide an egg on top and close the sandwiches. Grab some napkins, and dig in.
How to Store BLT Leftovers + Tips
This recipe is meant to be consumed immediately, when peak freshness is upon us. Any leftover ingredients should be stored individually for more sandwich assembly throughout the week.
We like to cook up a big batch of bacon in the oven to have on hand for BLTs. It’s the least messy method of preparation, and the bacon cooks evenly on a parchment lined sheet pan for easy cleanup.
A serrated knife will make tomato season so much easier.
We’re always looking for places to sneak in a few slices of creamy avocado, and this BLT is a good excuse to use the perfectly ripe avocado you have sitting on the counter.
Choosing your mayo wisely is a good way to spruce up a BLT. Some folks swear by a classic like Hellman’s, but we also like Duke’s, Kewpie, or a good Homemade Mayonnaise.
More Great Sandwich Classics From The Modern Proper
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