Making your own homemade salad dressings can actually be fairly simple, and the taste is far superior to the store bought stuff. Plus most packaged salad dressings are full of unnecessary additives (including refined sweeteners) that you would never cook with at home…so this is a great place to start when it comes to making the switch to real food. Below is a super simple recipe for the pictured Mustard Vinaigrette along with some other tips and recipes to keep your salads fresh and fun!
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First of all, I must share:
The Best Salad Dressing Invention Ever!
This bottle may not look like much, but detailed on the side are 8 different salad dressing recipes in a “fill to here” type fashion. It does call for some refined oils and such, but nothing that can’t easily be substituted for more whole ingredients. The recipes include Asian, Caesar, French, Greek, Italian, Vinaigrette, Balsamic Vinaigrette, and Honey Mustard – all which you can make and store in this bottle. We’ve had ours for several years now and it’s as good as new – we absolutely love it! And many of our family and friends now have one of these salad dressing bottles as well because one holiday season I went a little crazy and bought one for just about everybody I know. I just love practical gifts and at less than $9 a pop this one is hard to beat. :)
Okay, so back to recipes. Here are a few easy ones to get you started…along with the vinaigrette below!
- Blue Cheese Dressing
- Ranch Dip (can also be thinned out with milk to be more of a dressing)
- Honey Mustard (equal parts honey and mustard)
- Also, don’t forget – just plain Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar!
Simple Mustard Vinaigrette
Ingredients
- ½ cup olive oil
- 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
- 1 teaspoon mustard
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 pinch paprika
- pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Pour all ingredients into a small mason jar. Put on the lid and shake vigorously (i.e. emulsify) until well blended.
Store the dressing in the jar in the fridge - the oil will harden when cold so be sure to let it sit out or warm it up a bit each time before using.
Using Spelt Pasta (Plus a recipe and $500 Giveaway!)
As an alternative to diet salad dressing, I mix 1 tsp. of prepared mustard and 1 tsp. honey for a side salad. (Yes, I measure.) 20 calories.
Just had to compliment your dressing bottle choice. We have that same one, and we absolutely love it!!
What would you recommend to increase the viscosity of vinaigrette dressing so they cling a little better to the greens?
Hello. I think the mustard helps a lot.
I tried this yesterday and it is so good. I just added a teaspoon of garlic powder, so that I can store this on the counter. This way I can use it when I need to and not have to worry about it getting so thick.