Deviled Eggs with Bacon and Traditional Balsamic Vinegar

You’re off to your next party and you want to bring something traditional yet a little different. Fancy up your deviled eggs with crisp bacon and a splash of Traditional Balsamic vinegar. A little goes a long way in giving this Southern classic a sweet and tangy note that will keep your guests guessing. You can make this ahead and store it in the fridge until you’re ready to serve. We adapted this recipe from something we saw on Recipe Girl. We used our Traditional Balsamic which is aged up to 18 years but you can also experiment with our Vermont Maple dark balsamic vinegar.

INGREDIENTS

• 12 large eggs
• 4 slices of bacon, crisply cooked and chopped into bits
• ½ cup mayonnaise
• 1 tablespoon red onion, chopped finely
• ½ teaspoon sugar (updated note: we made another batch of these and omitted the sugar altogether and it was just fine. Despite the photo above you can leave out the sugar! It’s unnecessary.)
• ½ teaspoon Olive This! Traditional Balsamic Vinegar or Mission Fig Balsamic or Vermont Maple Balsamic
• ¼ teaspoon celery salt
• ¼ teaspoon black pepper, freshly ground
• Chives and red pepper flakes for garnish

DIRECTIONS

We use a method we learned from Cooks Illustrated to get perfectly boiled eggs. Put all the eggs in a single layer into a large pot. Fill with water to cover the eggs by about an inch. Place the pot over high heat and cover. When the water comes to a boil, turn off the heat and let the eggs sit in the water for about 15 minutes. Drain the hot water and run the eggs under cold water to cool.

While waiting for the eggs, prepare the red onions and bacon. Fry the bacon slices until crisp. Chop bacon into ¼-inch pieces. Finely chop the red onion until you have about 1 tablespoon. Set the bacon bits and chopped onion aside.

Carefully peel the cooled eggs and slice each one lengthwise. Remove the yolks from the whites and store in a small bowl. Place the white halves, cut side up, onto a serving plate. Set aside.

Use a fork to finely mash the egg yolks in the bowl. Then add the prepared bacon bits, the ½ cup of mayonnaise, the chopped red onion, ¼ teaspoon of celery salt, ½  teaspoon balsamic vinegar, ½ teaspoon granulated sugar (if adding sugar at all) and ¼ teaspoon of freshly ground pepper.

Stir egg yolk filling to combine. Adjust any seasonings according to your taste.

Transfer the filling to a piping bag, or do what we did and use a zipper-locking bag. Trim about a ½-inch corner off the bottom of the bag. Pipe an equal amount of egg yolk filling into the 24 egg white “cups” – about 1½ tablespoons of filling. Of course you can also spoon the filling into the egg white cups using two teaspoons.

Garnish with chives and red pepper flakes. Loosely cover the deviled eggs with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to serve. Enjoy!

MAKES 24 DEVILED EGGS

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