Key Takeaways
- We tested a handful of different celebrity BLT recipes to find the best version of this beloved sandwich.
- From additions like lobster to condiments like herb or chipotle mayo, there is something for every palate in this list.
- Our favorite combines ease and flavor balance for a sandwich we keep coming back to.
The BLT is the ultimate sandwich. It’s the perfect excuse to use up all your tomatoes and leftover bacon, and it’s so incredibly easy to make. With just a few ingredients, you can throw together a savory, juicy, crispy sandwich that’s bursting with flavor in no time at all. But how your BLT tastes really comes down to the recipe you choose.
It should come as no surprise that basically every chef has their own signature BLT sandwich—you might even have one, too. We put four celebrity recipes to the test to find our new go-to sandwich that we’ll be making the rest of the season. And let’s be honest: Since the ingredients are actually available year-round, we’ll be enjoying these sandwiches well beyond summer, too.
The Best Celebrity BLT Recipes, Ranked
4th Place: Martha Stewart’s Perfect BLT
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Martha Stewart’s iconic “Perfect BLT” is pretty simple. It’s two pieces of bacon, an entire vine-ripened tomato, romaine lettuce, basil, and homemade mayonnaise on white bread.
After two failed attempts at making Martha’s homemade mayo, we had to use store-bought mayo instead. But that still worked just fine.
We had high hopes from the “perfect” in the name, though the sandwich itself was kind of basic. While we love basil, the addition was a little lost in the shuffle and didn’t add too much to the BLT. It was a fine sandwich, but we wish there were more bacon. The ratio of two slices for an entire tomato seemed a little off. So it tasted more like a tomato-basil sandwich than a BLT—all we needed was some mozzarella, and we’d have a great Caprese sandwich.
3rd Place: Ina Garten’s Lobster BLT
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Ina Garten has two well-known BLT recipes: the Lobster BLT and the California BLT. We went with the lobster-topped BLT because it’s essentially the same as her California version, but with the addition of lobster and Thousand Island dressing.
The “Barefoot Contessa” star’s sandwich is made with slices of bacon, Bibb lettuce, sliced tomato, avocado, lobster meat, and homemade Thousand Island on fresh bakery white bread.
It’s clear that this BLT is an indulgent meal. Lobster meat certainly isn’t cheap, but it does add a great flavor to the dish—and it’s a nice change from the traditional bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich. If you don’t like Thousand Island dressing, you can go lighter on that layer (like we did), but the dressing really does go together nicely with the other flavors.
Overall, this is definitely not a sandwich we’d make every week, but it was a nice treat.
2nd Place: Joanna Gaines’ BLT Sandwich
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Joanna Gaines’ BLT recipe can be found in her “Magnolia Table Cookbook.” It’s made with butter lettuce, applewood-smoked bacon, vine-ripened tomatoes, and a homemade herb mayo on country-style white bread. The herb mayo can also be found in her cookbook, and it’s made with 1 cup mayonnaise, 1 small minced garlic clove, 2 tablespoons minced chives, 1 tablespoon minced parsley, 1 tablespoon minced dill, 1 1/2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice, 1/2 teaspoon sweet paprika, and 1/2 teaspoon each of kosher salt and white pepper—all mixed together.
The country-style white bread is really tasty—and we loved that you toast it in a skillet with mayo. But the herb mayo is really what takes this sandwich to the next level.
We thoroughly enjoyed this sandwich. It tastes very elevated thanks to the high-quality bread and herb mayo, but it’s still easy to make and attainable for an everyday meal.
1st Place: Ree Drummond’s Monster BLT
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The Pioneer Woman’s BLT is aptly named the “Monster BLT.” And a monster it was. This sandwich was a triple-decker, piled with eight slices of bacon, Roma tomatoes, romaine lettuce, and a heavy slather of chipotle mayo on marbled rye bread.
Our immediate thought was that this sandwich was too big. The middle piece of bread was pretty unnecessary, so when we make it again, we’ll probably skip that piece. That said, this was our favorite sandwich.
The homemade chipotle mayo really made it. It was so delicious and perfectly spicy. Even if we don’t use that middle piece of bread next time, we’d still use the same amount of mayo because it was that good.
If you’re not a rye bread fan, no need to fear. You can still enjoy this sandwich because the other ingredients really outshine the bread’s taste. All in all, this is the perfect quick, easy sandwich to throw together—and bonus points for how ridiculously delicious it is.
