While there are countless salad dressings available in supermarkets, there are many benefits to creating your own homemade salad dressings. One advantage in making your own salad dressing is that you know exactly what has gone in it. A second advantage is that you can tweak the recipe to your own tastes - if you like your dressings more or less acidic than the standard dressing, you can easily make those changes with a homemade dressing.
While there are literally hundreds of salad dressings you can make, there are two basics dressings that you can use as a base for your own flavours and experiments.
Vinaigrette
A basic vinaigrette is made up with just two ingredients - oil and an acid - combined in the ratio of three parts of oil to one part of acid (plus salt and pepper to taste). The different flavours this dressing can have all come from what you use for your oil and acid.
The oil you use can range from a basic canola or sunflower oil to olive oil, palm oil or nut oils. Each oil has it's own distinct flavour, and with some taste testing you're sure to find one or more that you really enjoy the flavour of.
Like the oil, you have many options for your acid - you can use citrus juice (lemons, limes, etc) or vinegar (red wine, white, balsamic, flavoured vinegars, etc).
From just this simple combination of two ingredients you already have a huge range of flavours you can create. And once you start adding additional ingredients to the dressing, the possibilities are limitless. Adding a little mustard or sour cream will make the dressing nice and creamy, while including extra spices like chilli can totally change how the dressing enhances the salad it is with.
Emulsified Dressings
An emulsified dressing is the creamy style of dressing that we're all familiar with. The common dressings just use mayonnaise as a base (simply adding additional items to the mayonnaise to get the various distinctive flavours), but people who are trying to reduce their fat intake sometimes replace the mayonnaise with nonfat yogurt, reduced-fat sour cream or buttermilk.
Like a vinaigrette, the different flavours for the dressing come from what you add to the base. The popular thousand island dressing is a combination of mayonnaise, ketchup, tobasco and finely chopped vegetables (most often pickles, onions, bell peppers, and green olives), while ranch dressing is made by combining mayonnaise, buttermilk or sour cream, minced green onion, garlic powder, and other seasonings (to taste).
When it comes to homemade salad dressings, the key ingredient is experimenting. By adding different combinations of ingredients to the base of your dressing, you're sure to find the perfect dressing that you and your family or friends will enjoy. You'll find many exciting salad ideas to try your new dressings on at The Kitchen Recipe. And who knows, your new dressing recipe might become a huge hit!
