do you know what's IN that bottle?

[lagilman]

Seriously, have you looked at the ingredients list of a bottle of even "healthy" salad dressing recently?*

Challenge: to create a salad dressing that was as good as (or better than) what came from the offered bottle, made from ingredients a decently-stocked kitchen would have on-hand, and could be made in the time it took to take the salad out of the fridge and plate it.

Challenge accepted.

1 small bowl, 1 whisk or a fork.
honey
olive oil
white wine vinegar
Dijon mustard

Put a decent dose of olive oil into the bowl (approximately how much dressing you want, minus a spoonful). Add in a spoonful of honey, and an equal dab of mustard. Splash just a bit of vinegar. You can add a bit of lemon juice if you'd like - I used a lemon-flavored vinegar.

Whisk until it all blends. Use as desired.

Challenge: met.

This is why I haven't bought salad dressing in years. :-)

You can dress it up or down as you see fit - I personally don't add herbs, although I know some folk prefer it. Ditto salt.

As always, the quality of what you get is equal to the quality of what you put in. If you're only splurging on one thing, I'd say make it the mustard. Mediocre mustard is a very sad thing.

Also: if you see diced jicama in your supermarket? Grab it. One of the best additions to salad since ever, and worth the premium to have it ready-to-add.



* Stuff to give it a longer shelf-life while stored in warehouses, stuff to give it color (the honey alone will do that), chemicals to fight off other chemicals, and BTW, that "non-fat" stuff? Unless you're drinking your dressing, there's nowhere near enough fat in a salad dressing to really freak you out. And the drops of olive oil clinging to your greens will make you want to eat more.

Comments

[kradical.livejournal.com]

You can buy salad dressing? I had no idea................

Why would anyone do that?????

(I'm being facetious, of course, but you know that my idea of salad dressing is mixing olive oil, balsamic vinegar, oregano, sage, and mustard.)

[lagilman]

And there are, of course, other variations of dressings. I make buttermilk dressing when requested, although I can't eat it myself....

(and French dressing is not as simple but much tastier than the bottled version)

[shana.livejournal.com]

That's similar to my father's recipe, except we use basil, cumin and garlic.

[jennetj.livejournal.com]

This is what I do, only I use balsamic vinegar. Fabulous. It was such a hit at Thanksgiving that my friends asked for it for our next gathering.

[http://users.livejournal.com/tesserae_/]

Yes, this, exactly. I've done my own dressing for years & have recently rediscovered good apple cider & pear cider vinegars are *wonderful* for salads. There's a fruitiness to them that's really nice, esp. if you put fruit instead of tomatoes into salads. And if you like blue cheese, whisking a little bit into a basic oil & vinegar is much tastier than the glop that comes out of a jar of "bleu cheese dressing."

[lagilman]

Or, instead of bleu, use Parmigiano and some fresh-cracked black pepper. Nom.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

Clearly we need a General Exchange of Salad Dressing Recipes!

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I endorse this!

[bonnie-rocks.livejournal.com]

Yes!

~*::Meow::*~

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

and a lot of those chemicals are either fake sugars or contain a sulfate.. which are both anathama to me.

Which is why I make my own dip for chips...

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Not just salad dressings - and it's been quite a challenge to find cookbooks that don't have "open a can of..." as part of their instructions. I either have to get a very modern one about farmer's markets or go back to the 40s.

This is, by the way, part of the whole baked bean rec request. I read the ingredients on my can of Bush's.

[lagilman]

and it's been quite a challenge to find cookbooks that don't have "open a can of..." as part of their instructions.

You? Are reading the wrong cookbooks. Do you have Mark Bittman's Cook All The Things How to Cook Everything?

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Yes, although I haven't worked from it much. Yet.

[jperceval.livejournal.com]

My standard dressing: olive oil, balsamic vinegar, dijon mustard, salt, pepper.

[wiredwizard.livejournal.com]

Salt, pepper, oil & homemade raspberry vinegar works pretty well.

[rovanda.livejournal.com]

I always use salsa for my dressing these days, though I'll admit I generally get it out of a jar...