This creamy and protein-packed Bacon Deviled Egg Salad is perfect for picnics and packed lunches. Topped with bacon, this keto-friendly dish is sure to be a crowd-pleaser!

A closeup of Bacon Deviled Egg Salad on a lettuce leaf in a blue and white bowl.

Easier than making Deviled Eggs

Longtime readers know that I’m not patient enough to roll up my sleeves and make classic deviled eggs—you know the kind, with elaborately piped yolks and prettily garnished tops. That’s why I slouched my way into coming up with a Lazy Devils recipe. Still, I love the flavor-profile of traditional deviled eggs—slightly piquant and creamy—and when they’re topped with crispy bacon bites, I devour ’em like porky candy.

So I decided to put on my big-girl pants and actually make some deviled eggs for once. I put on my apron, dug my pastry bag and decorative tips out of my messy kitchen junk drawer, and cracked my knuckles. TIME TO DO SOME WORK, MICHELLE!

But then, about halfway through—right around the time I was popping the yolks out of my hard-cooked eggs to make a big bowl of filling—I realized something: WHO CARES? Seriously: Every time I see a plate of beautifully prepared deviled eggs, I spend about zero total seconds admiring the way they look before popping them into my open mouth. So unless the Queen of England is coming over for tea, all I care about is the way these babies taste.

So what’s a short-cutter like me supposed to do? Answer: Put away all the extra equipment and make a big bowl of Bacon Deviled Egg Salad instead!

An overhead shot of Bacon Deviled Egg Salad divided into serving bowls.

The perfect make-ahead salad!

This Whole30-friendly, make-ahead egg salad is one of my summer BBQ staple side dishes. Like traditional deviled eggs, I start with hard-cooked eggs and pop out the yolks to make a smooth and tangy base. However, instead of carefully piping the sunshine-colored filling back into a bunch of halved egg whites, I simply chop up the whites and add some herbs and flavor boosters to transform it into my favorite egg salad. It’s even simpler to make if you already have pre-cooked eggs in your fridge.

How to make it ahead of time

You can store the egg salad in the fridge in an airtight sealed container for up to 4 days—just don’t add the sprouts and bacon bits until you’re ready to serve!

Now, let’s whip up my Bacon Deviled Egg Salad recipe and make you the star of your neighborhood block parties!

Ingredients

  • Large eggs: You’ll need ten eggs to make enough salad to feed
  • Bacon, chilled in freezer for 20 minutes: If you don’t eat pork bacon, you can sub turkey bacon. If you don’t like bacon, you can simply sprinkle on some smoked paprika at the end for the red color and smoky flavor.
  • Homemade Paleo mayonnaise or Primal Kitchen Mayonnaise: Who am I kidding? I don’t make my own mayo these days because I can buy great paleo-friendly ones at the store.
  • Dijon mustard
  • Fresh lemon juice
  • Minced shallot
  • Fresh Italian parsley leaves
  • Minced fresh chives
  • Diamond Crystal brand kosher salt (use ½ the amount if you’re using a fine grain salt)
  • Ground black pepper
  • Lettuce leaves (optional)
  • Sprouts (optional)
  • Small sweet peppers (optional)

How to make a deviled egg salad

Hard cook your eggs the old-fashioned way, in a steamer, or in an Instant Pot. (I won’t tell anyone if you buy the pre-cooked peeled hard boiled eggs at the store.)

An overhead shot of hard boiled eggs in a blue and white bowl.

For those of you who don’t have a pressure cooker, steaming your eggs is another cooking method that makes them super easy to peel. I follow this technique from Serious Eats, which involves filling a large pot with an inch of water, plopping in a steamer insert, covering the pot, and bringing the water to a boil over high heat. Once the water is boiling, carefully arrange the eggs in a single layer in the steamer insert. Cover the pot and steam the eggs for 12 minutes.

Eggs in a silicone steamer in an open pot.

When the eggs are finished cooking, scoop ’em out with a slotted spoon and transfer them to an ice bath to chill for at least 5 minutes.

Hard cooked eggs chilling in an ice bath.

While the eggs are cooking, slice the chilled bacon crosswise into ¼-inch pieces. Toss the bacon slices into a large cast iron skillet and crank the heat up to medium. Slowly render the bacon until the grease is released and the bits get crunchy (around 15 to 20 minutes).

An overhead shot of bacon bits frying in a large cast iron skillet.

Transfer the crispy bacon bits onto a paper towel-lined plate and set aside to cool.

Crispy bacon bits are drained on a paper towel lined plate.

Peel the eggs…

Someone peeling a hard cooked egg.

…and cut them in half, lengthwise.

Someone slicing a bunch of hard cooked eggs on a wooden cutting board.

Pop out the egg yolks into a bowl…

Someone popping the egg yolks out of halved hard cooked eggs.

…and add the mayonnaise, mustard, and lemon juice.

Mayonnaise, mustard, and lemon juice is added to a bowl filled with hard cooked yolks.

Stir and smush the yolk mixture, until mostly smooth.

The yolks, mayonnaise, mustard, and lemon juice are mixed until smooth.

Roughly chop the egg whites…

The hard cooked egg whites are chopped into small chunks.

…and add them to the bowl along with the minced shallots, parsley, chives, salt and pepper.

The diced egg whites and herbs are added to the creamy egg yolk/mayo mixture.

Mix carefully to combine. Taste for seasoning and adjust if necessary.

All the ingredients for bacon Deviled Egg Salad are mixed carefully.

Scoop into serving bowls (and line with lettuce leaves if desired). Top with sprouts and crispy bacon bits.

Bacon Deviled Egg Salad is topped with sprouts and crispy bacon bits.

Serve!

An overhead shot of Bacon Deviled Egg Salad in a bunch of blue and white bowls.

I know—some of you are probably upset that I never ended up making deviled eggs after all. Well, if you really feel like stuffing something, I recommend spooning your egg salad into mini sweet bell peppers. The peppers offer a brightly sweet and crunchy balance to the creamy, rich egg salad. 

Bacon Deviled Egg Salad in small hollowed red bell peppers.

Looking for more recipe ideas? Head on over to my Recipe Index. You’ll also find exclusive recipes in my cookbooks, Nom Nom Paleo: Food for Humans (Andrews McMeel Publishing 2013), Ready or Not! (Andrews McMeel Publishing 2017), and Nom Nom Paleo: Let’s Go! (Andrews McMeel Publishing 2022).


PRINTER-FRIENDLY RECIPE CARD

Bacon Deviled Egg Salad

5 from 7 votes
Prep Time5 minutes
Cook Time30 minutes
Total Time1 hour
Servings 4 servings
This Whole30-friendly, make-ahead Bacon Deviled Egg Salad is perfect for picnics and packed lunches. Topped with bacon, this dish is sure to be a crowd-pleaser!

Ingredients  

  • 10 large eggs
  • 4 ounces bacon chilled in freezer for 20 minutes
  • cup homemade Paleo mayonnaise or Primal Kitchen Mayonnaise
  • 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
  • 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
  • 1 large shallot minced (about ¼ cup)
  • ¼ cup minced fresh Italian parsley leaves
  • 2 tablespoons minced fresh chives
  • 1½  teaspoons  Diamond Crystal brand kosher salt  use ½ the amount if you’re using a fine grain salt
  • ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
  • lettuce leaves optional
  • ½ cup sprouts optional
  • Small sweet peppers optional
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Instructions 

  • Hard cook your eggs the old-fashioned way, in a steamer, or in a pressure cooker. (I won’t tell anyone if you buy the pre-cooked peeled eggs at the store.)
  • For those of you who don’t have a pressure cooker, steaming your eggs is another cooking method that makes them super easy to peel. I follow this technique from Serious Eats, which involves filling a large pot with an inch of water, plopping in a steamer insert, covering the pot, and bringing the water to a boil over high heat. Once the water is boiling, carefully arrange the eggs in a single layer in the steamer insert. Cover the pot and steam the eggs for 12 minutes.
  • When the eggs are finished cooking, scoop ’em out with a slotted spoon and transfer them to an ice bath to chill for at least 5 minutes.
  • While the eggs are cooking, slice the chilled bacon crosswise into ¼-inch pieces. Toss the bacon slices into a large cast iron skillet and crank the heat up to medium. Slowly render the bacon until the grease is released and the bits get crunchy (around 15 to 20 minutes).
  • Transfer the crispy bacon bits onto a paper towel-lined plate and set aside to cool.
  • Peel the eggs and cut them in half, lengthwise. Pop out the yolks into a bowl and add the mayonnaise, mustard, and lemon juice. Stir and smush, until mostly smooth.
  • Roughly chop the egg whites and add them to the bowl along with the minced shallots, parsley, chives, salt and pepper.
  • Mix carefully to combine. Taste for seasoning and adjust if necessary.
  • Scoop into serving bowls lined with lettuce leaves, if desired. Top with sprouts and crispy bacon bits.
  • If you really feel like stuffing something, I recommend spooning your egg salad into mini sweet bell peppers. The peppers offer a brightly sweet and crunchy balance to the creamy, rich egg salad. 
  • You can store the egg salad in the fridge for up to 4 days—just don’t add the sprouts and bacon bits until you’re ready to serve!

Video

Notes

If you’ve got hard cooked eggs in your fridge already, this dish is a breeze to whip together. 

Nutrition

Calories: 407kcal | Carbohydrates: 5g | Protein: 18g | Fat: 34g | Fiber: 1g

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

Like this? Leave a comment below!

About Michelle Tam

Hello! My name is Michelle Tam, and I love to eat. I think about food all the time. It borders on obsession. I’ve always loved the sights and smells of the kitchen. My mother was (and is) an excellent cook, and as a kid, I was her little shadow as she prepared supper each night. From her, I gained a deep, abiding love for magically transforming pantry items into mouth-watering family meals.

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12 Comments

  1. I finally used my Instant Pot to make perfect hard “boiled” (cooked) eggs following your instructions, Michelle – what a game changer! You were absolutely right … 20 minutes from start to finish. But the best part was how easy they are to peel. With 2 teenagers in the house it’s important to have ready-to-eat sources of protein in the fridge. An extra dozen easy-peel hard-cooked eggs fit the bill! Thanks.

  2. So where in the world do you get whole30-friendly bacon? I’ve been looking for awhile and can’t find any. I wanted to try this!

    1. You can buy sugar-free bacon at most Whole Foods and Sprouts stores. Pederson’s and Wellshire Farms are two common brands. Also, you can buy it online at US Wellness Meats. (If I’m not doing a Whole30, I don’t worry about the small amount of sugar in good bacon.)

  3. Michelle, Have you seen the “boiled egg loaf” that folks online are making by cracking the raw eggs into a Pot-in-Pot and pressure cooking them? If we did that, we wouldn’t even have to peel the eggs at all. Then, we could “carve out” the yolks to “devil” – or we could try separating them into two stacked “pots” before cooking. Or, would the result be the same if we just chopped up the whole thing with the dry ingredients and then added all the wet ingredients, and mixed it all up, then topped with the bacon? Would that be simpler? Or would it end up mushy or too lumpy or something?

  4. I don’t know – to me, a big part of the appeal of deviled eggs is the form: that single, whole piece of smooth, silky white, with the dollop of creamy, piquant yolk as contrast. Chopped-up whites and yolks mushed together are a whole lot less appealing to me. Also less convenient at a party: who wants to scoop wet, loose mush into a lettuce leaf as a finger food? I mean, it’s fine if you like it this way, but I think you’re seriously underrating the virtues of a traditional deviled egg.

    1. No, I agree with you. I love deviled eggs and bow down to whomever wants to make them for me.

  5. I made this for dinner last night and we really liked it! (On Sundays, I make ten hardboiled eggs to eat for breakfast during the week, so it was easy to add in another ten for this recipe, and I pre-peeled them to save time for weeknight dinner!)

    We ate it on top of a big bowl of fresh baby spinach. The lettuce in the photos looks lovely, but I find it tiresome to try and chop up greens while I’m eating.

    Yum, and thanks!

  6. 5 stars
    Best egg salad I’ve ever eaten in my life. And not just because of the bacon, as I tried it with and without, 5 stars plus.