Salad Dressings

After being gone most of last week, and eating in the cafeteria at the retreat center, and on the road traveling, it’s nice to get back to home cooked meals .. even if I have to do the cooking and cleaning myself.

If you’ve never made homemade salad dressings, I urge to at least try it. Some of the refrigerated dressings in the grocery store are good but for the most part, I think dressings in bottles is what’s caused me not to love salad. Once I started making our own, I want a salad with every meal. They are so easy to make!

Yesterday I made all our dressings for the week. 

In the larger jar is my version of French. The medium jar is Thousand Island and the three small jars contain Ranch. Honestly, you won’t believe how easy they are to make if you’ve never made them.

French Dressing:

For this one, I put all the ingredients in a wide mouth jar and use my immersion blender, which I then stick the dirty part in the dishwater, turn it on and let it spin for a second and it’s clean.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup honey or sugar
• 3/4 cup canola oil
• 1/3 cup ketchup
• 1/2 onion (you can cut it into 6 or 8 chunks and the immersion blender will do the rest)
• 1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 tsp. salt (or to taste)
• 1/2 tsp. paprika
• black pepper to taste

Blend and pour into a container and refrigerate.

This is also very good as a marinade for grilling chicken. Pound chicken thin, pour a little dressing over chicken and refrigerate overnight. Drain from marinade, season, grill, brushing with fresh dressing as it cooks. It’s very good to grill pineapple rings and serve over chicken with saffron rice.

Thousand Island Dressing:

We use this on our sandwiches as well as on our salads. This is a recipe I’ve tried to duplicate from a restaurant in Lake Charles many years ago.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup mayo
• 1/3 cup ketchup
• 3 T. sweet pickle relish
• 2 boiled eggs
• A bit of grated onion
• 1 T. apple cider vinegar
• 1/8 cup cheddar cheese cut into small bits

I peel the eggs and mash them with a fork. Mix remaining ingredients, stir well (do not use a blender . . you want a bit of chunks). Pour into a container with a lid and refrigerate. For any dressing with a mayo base, I try to use it within a week.

Ranch Dressing:

In my opinion, this dressing is very forgiving. If you like one ingredient, use more. If you don’t like another ingredient, leave it out. I would say the mayo, yogurt and buttermilk are pretty essential but after that . . suit yourself. Some recipes call for oregano. I don’t like oregano and I’ve never tasted it in Ranch dressing so I don’t use it. Vince would probably drink it from the jar if I used oregano. The recipe doesn’t have real specific ingredients or amounts.

• Mix mayo/Greek yogurt (or sour cream) in the ration of 2:1. I usually start with 1 cup may and 1/2 cup yogurt.
• 1 T. apple cider vinegar

I add a bit of the following ingredients but really, add whatever you want:

• chives
• dill (fresh or dried)
• parsley
• Worcestershire (I don’t add much – don’t like it much)
• Red pepper
• garlic, finely minced (a little goes a long way)
• Paprika

Stir all the ingredients and taste. You may want to add salt. Stir in buttermilk (or milk if you don’t keep buttermilk on hand) to make it the consistency of dressing. If we’re using it for veggie dip, I leave it a little thicker than if I’m using it for dressing. Also, while working with it, it can be a little thinner than it is once it’s been in the fridge for a day or so. If it’s thicker than you want, just add a little more buttermilk and give it a good stir. Also, if you end up with too much spice, add a little more mayo and yogurt. It’s pretty much no fail!