#blt

#blt

If you want every bite to actually taste like a good BLT, there's one bacon prep step you can't skip: Draining off the extra grease. Forget that, and the whole thing starts falling apart. This might be obvious to some people, but if you're not cooking a lot, it's not always the first thing you think about. Bacon grease left sitting there is going to soak into the bread, make it heavy, soggy, and overly greasy.

Some people may look at classic sandwiches like the BLT and think, "Boring." But they obviously haven't tried upgraded versions of the lunchtime legend. In particular, you can boost the bacon-y sandwich with a punchy condiment straight from page 77 of Joanna Gaines' " Magnolia Table" cookbook: Easy Herb Mayo. The celebrity chef, home, and kitchen guru's mayo is the perfect blend of vibrant, finely minced herbs, citrus, and spices that balance and soften the fattiness inherent to the condiment, as well as bacon.

One BLT, coming right up. The classic sandwich presents the perfect combination of flavors and textures by way of its signature ingredients: toasty bread, juicy tomatoes, crisp lettuce, creamy mayonnaise, and savory slices of bacon.

Martha Stewart's BLT focuses on homemade ingredients, particularly her homemade mayonnaise, epitomizing her notion of perfection in a classic sandwich.