Bottled salad dressings are one of the worst offenders on the highly processed food scale—rarely will you find one with less than 5 ingredients, and usually most are totally unrecognizable/unpronounceable. Learn to make this from scratch and you’ll never want to buy one again.
This vinaigrette can be used for dressing salads and marinating vegetables or lean meats for grilling.
Makes approximately 1/2 c dressing.
Ingredients:
- Juice of 1/2 lemon or 3 T red wine vinegar
- 2 cloves garlic or 1/2 small shallot, minced
- salt/pepper to taste
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1/2 c good quality olive oil
Method:
- Place a small bowl on a towel to keep it from slipping.
- In the bowl, whisk together the lemon juice or vinegar, garlic or shallot, salt, pepper and mustard.
- Whisking constantly, gradually add the olive oil, 1 drop at a time initially, then in a very slow stream. If the mixture separates, stop adding oil and whisk vigorously until combined before adding more oil.
- Adjust seasoning, then use or pour into a glass jar with a tight lid.
Variations:
- Change up the type of juice or vinegar used, or try combining different types (balsamic and raspberry, for example). If you use vinegar, start out by using a good red wine vinegar, then try out variations—the one vinegar to avoid is distilled white, which is usually too harsh. If you’re using a very strongly flavored vinegar, use part rice wine vinegar, which has a neutral flavor. Citrus juices or other high-acid fruit juices are the best bets.
- Vary the type of oil used—nut oils, avocado oil, sesame oil, etc. If the oil is strongly flavored, then use 1/4 c of it plus 1/4 c of a neutral oil, such as safflower.
- Add 1/2 tsp dried herbs—use your favorite, or try basil, oregano, thyme for starters.
Do ahead:
- You probably won’t use all the vinaigrette at once, so store the leftovers in the tightly covered glass jar in the fridge. To use, bring to room temperature, then give it a good shake to recombine.
- Add chopped fresh herbs just to the amount of vinaigrette you need—if you add fresh herbs to vinaigrette that you store, they will turn an off color.
Learning more:
- The most basic formula for vinaigrette is 1 part acid (juice or vinegar) to 3 parts oil, meaning that you can make a simple vinaigrette from 1 T acid and 3 parts oil, but this sort of mixture will simply break apart into oil and vinegar as soon as it is allowed to rest.
- The basic vinaigrette in the recipe is a type of emulsion: an acid will not usually combine with an oil, so they are whisked together with a bit of Dijon mustard. (In baking, egg yolks often act as the emulsifier, allowing the batter to combine oil with liquid and not separate.) If you whisk very briskly and add the oil drop by drop, you can make an emulsion that may well last for more than a day—if the vinaigrette does separate, just give it a good shake before using it. Store bought salad dressings contain a number of emulsifiers (some natural and some not so natural), which is why they seldom separate.
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