Salad Days – All Dressed Up

With Spring already here and Summer fast approaching, it seems we all eat a lot more salads.  But what are all those tasty salads wearing?Whether they are a side dish to our meal or are themselves the main course, people love salads and make them quite easily on any given day or night.  Most of us don’t seem afraid to try different combinations of ingredients including vegetables,  fruits and nuts, cheeses and greens.  What does seem to trouble many people or give them pause, even those who enjoy cooking, is the dressing that goes on the salad.

I love making dressings for salad.  It isn’t that I don’t like bottled dressing, it is just so easy to make, that I never think of buying dressing.  And as I have become more and more aware of the food additives and the chemicals that are present in prepared foods, to me it is worth the few seconds it takes to make a fresh dressing to go on my fresh salad, and it is less expensive too.

Just the other day my youngest daughter, Amanda, suggested that we do a post, or a series of posts, about salad dressings….so here we are!   Today we are going to start by giving you the recipes for a classic dressing…Simple Vinaigrette, and then two tasty variations on it….Lemon Vinaigrette and Raspberry Vinaigrette.

Fresh salad and easy, delicious, fresh dressing….now that’s abundant living 🙂

Classic Vinaigrette Salad Dressing

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 cloves fresh garlic, finely minced
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
Kosher or sea salt
Freshly ground pepper
1 cup good olive oil  + a bit extra

Mix all the ingredients except oil in a blender or a jar with a tight fitting lid.  Blend or shake well for 30 seconds then add the cup of oil and blend until all ingredients are emulsified and mixture is smooth.  It may separate after sitting for a while so shake the jar well or blend again in the blender.  Extra dressing that you don’t use will keep in the refrigerator for 4-5 days.

When you are ready to use it on your salad, drizzle a couple tablespoons of oil on your salad first and sprinkle the greens generously with salt and pepper.  This is the secret to having really flavorful salad.  Drizzle on dressing using less than you would think you need at first, as it is easy to add more but you can’t take it off and nothing is worse than a perfectly good salad that is drowning in dressing and quickly becomes soggy.  Both the salt and the sugar draw moisture out of the greens so don’t add dressing until just before you are ready to serve the salad.  This is true for any salad.

Lemon Vinaigrette

This is really a misnomer as there is no vinegar in this recipe at all.  Instead the necessary acid for the dressing all comes from lemon juice.  This is honestly the simplest of all dressings.

1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup olive or grapeseed oil*
salt and pepper

Mix all 4 ingredients together until thoroughly blended.  Salt and pepper your salad greens and drizzle with dressing.  Toss lightly and taste.  Adjust seasoning if necessary.

Raspberry Vinaigrette 

1 cup rice wine vinegar
1/2 cup grapeseed oil*
1 cup raspberry jam (any good quality raspberry jam will work)
1 teaspoon salt

Blend  together and pour on salad immediately before serving.  This is obviously a sweet vinaigrette and is really nice on spinach salad with fruit and candied nuts or on a salad made with hearty greens like romaine, iceberg lettuce or kale.

* Grapeseed oil is a wonderful addition to any pantry.  It is light, inexpensive and virtually flavorless so it doesn’t change the taste of your salad or fight ingredients that may have a lot of flavor on their own.  It has the added benefit of being good for you.  Most grocery stores carry it and you can always find it at Trader Joes.