Homemade Salad Dressings Make a Star Out of Salad

- dressing salad

Homemade Salad Dressings Make a Star Out of Salad

I worked with an amazing food writer to put together a resource for different salad dressings. These are just base guidelines and not super defined recipes but hopefully it gives you a good place to start for inspiration! Making your own dressing is super rewarding and easy to nail down once you get the ratios/emulsification part right and really helps to elevate your salad. My personal favorite is vinaigrette with just oil, lemon juice, and mustard whisked together with a bit of salt and pepper.

I actually made the thousand island dressing as it was listed below but with Greek yogurt instead of mayo and it was AWESOME!

You can read the full article here, if you're interested.

Vinaigrettes

The simplest salad dressing—and an easy recipe to riff on with your own favorite flavors—is the classic vinaigrette, using oil, vinegar, and mustard. The standard ratio is three parts oil to one part vinegar, and the most basic version uses olive oil, white wine vinegar, and a dollop of mustard, plus salt and pepper. But there’s no reason to hold off there: switching the vinegar for a balsamic or Champagne upgrades it instantly, while using a citrus juice like lemon, lime, or grapefruit brings a fun zing. You can get creative with other oils, like avocado, pumpkin seed, or hazelnut. And the mustard can be switched out for a little honey if that matches the other flavors better.

Standard Vinaigrette

All you really need is oil, vinegar, and a bit of emulsifier—usually mustard—to pull this standard together.

Recipe:

Italian Dressing

This tabletop favorite is actually just a basic olive oil and red or white wine vinegar vinaigrette mixed with a few herbs—fresh parsley and dried basil, oregano, and red pepper—with lemon juice and garlic.

Recipe:

Balsamic Vinaigrette

Balsamic vinegar makes a tart and sweet base for salads, so it’s a common vinaigrette ingredient, usually with a splash of honey to bring it together.

Recipe:

Caesar Salad Dressing

Like a vinaigrette, Caesar salad dressing is an emulsion: the egg yolk works as the emulsifying agent and the lemon juice as the acid. The extra ingredients—pepper, anchovies, and Parmesan—just help to emulsify it. This is useful knowledge for anyone trying to make a riff on the dish: don’t like using raw eggs? Just use some mayonnaise or even yogurt in place of the egg yolk. Feeling like tweaking it? Try it with lime, or go with yuzu juice. Just like the standard vinaigrette, once you master the ratio, playing with flavors becomes easier.

Caesar Dressing

Perhaps one of the most iconic single dressings in American cuisine, this dressing gets its body from a raw egg yolk mixed with oil, and its flavor from a trio of big guns: anchovies, parmesan, and garlic.

Recipe:

(Whisk everything except olive oil and parm cheese...slowly incorporate oil until emulsified, whisk in cheese, season with salt/pepper)

Mayo-based Caesar Dressing

For the squeamish, the immunity-compromised, or the lazy, the ready-made emulsion of mayonnaise makes it easy to simply stir in the flavor components of Caesar dressing and then it with a little extra lemon juice.

Recipe:

Creamy Dressings

Creamy dressings—like green goddess or ranch dressing—tend to do well with heartier salads and chunkier vegetables, as they may weigh down fragile greens. While cream itself is an emulsion, the truth is most of the creamy salad dressings you’re familiar with come from a mayonnaise base, which makes them even easier to make than a vinaigrette. And, in most cases, you can swap out the mayo for yogurt or Greek yogurt for a lighter or tangier version. For most of these, you can just toss all the ingredients into a blender and whiz together your favorite dressing.

All versions below can use greek yogurt instead of mayo, sour cream, or buttermilk

Blue Cheese

The funky flavor of blue cheese gets tangy with mayonnaise and sour cream or buttermilk in this big-flavor American classic that’s simple to stir together.

Recipe:

You can whisk all blue cheese with ingredients, or whisk half and then add half at the end for a chunkier option.

Green Goddess

Practically synonymous with fresh flavors, this California specialty packs in a truckload of herbs, brought together with a little mayonnaise and sour cream (and sometimes avocado, in a modern version)

Recipe:

You can also add spinach to get more greens!

Ranch

America’s favorite buttermilk-herb dressing went from a niche restaurant product to mainstream quickly, and has now taken on an iconic spot on grocery shelves. Use herbs such as fresh (or dried) dill, parsley, and fresh green onions or fresh/dried chives.

Recipe:

Mayonnaise-based Dressings

Mayonnaise on its own makes for an easy base (and, again, easily substituted for yogurt) and has become the base of at least two favorites: Russian and Thousand Island. Both begin with a mayo base and take much of their flavor from ketchup without any additional creaminess coming in later, Russian veers toward horseradish for sharpness and thousand island uses sweet pickle relish.

Russian Dressing

From a base of mayonnaise and ketchup, the horseradish and hot sauce lift this into a creamy, sharp dressing.

Recipe:

Thousand Island

Like an overturned condiment cart, thousand island mixes mayonnaise, ketchup, and relish, with vinegar and garlic, for a unique and tangy dressing.

Recipe:

Alternative Dressings

Who says your salad dressing needs to use any of these classic methods? Nobody! While the texture of emulsification tends to do well, there are other ways to get the same texture or others that work well for salads: tahini as a base, using chia seeds in a citrus-based liquid, and even just blending up large amounts herbs like mint and parsley with a light oil until they just come together.

Tahini Dressing

The sesame seed paste known as tahini comes already thick and creamy, so turning it into a salad dressing simple requires thinning it out with a bit of lemon juice and olive oil and then adding flavors—from basic chopped garlic to spicy pickled peppers.

Recipe

Herb Dressing

There’s no rules on this one, just clean up whatever herbs are floating in your fridge or garden, and drizzle with a touch of oil before blending. Play around by adding garlic, capers, pickled shallots, or anything else you have on hand.

Recipe

Chia Dressing

Chia seeds will thicken any liquid, so letting them work their magic on whatever your favorite flavors are turns them into a salad dressing. Mix ingredients, like blueberry and lemon juice, or orange juice and chopped chipotle peppers in adobo, and then let sit for an hour with the seeds before stirring and serving.

Recipe:

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