Saturday, January 23, 2010

Super-Simple Salad Dressings


One thing I strongly encourage my family to eat is salad. I love salad, and as luck would have it, my two oldest boys do too! My hubby not so much, although he will occasionally eat an Italian-style chopped salad.

One way I keep salad interesting for my family is by using a wide variety of veggies/fruit/nuts and salad dressings. I prefer to make my own dressings, as the commercial salad dressings in the supermarket are full of undesirable ingreedients such as hydrogenated fats, high-fructose corn syrup and artificial flavors and dyes.

I've included here a few of my favorite salad dressing recipes:


Classic Italian Salad Dressing (makes about 1/2 quart)

1 c. extra-virgin olive oil

1/2 c. fresh lemon juice

3-4 cloves minced garlic

1/2 tsp. sea salt

1/2 tsp. fresh ground pepper

1 tbsp. Italian seasoning mix

Combine all ingredients in a jar with a lid; secure lid tightly and shake vigorously until well-combined. Store in jar in fridge for up to one month.


Poppyseed Dressing (this is my personal favorite...great on sliced avacado!)

1 c. mayonaise

2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar, raw with the mother if possible

3 tbsp. dijon mustard

4 tbsp. poppyseeds

1 minced garlic clove

Combine all ingredients in a small mixing bowl; whisk rapidly until well-combined. Stores in the fridge covered for up to two weeks.


Mandarin-Sesame Dressing

2 tbsp. sesame oil

1 c. extra-virgin olive oil

2 minced garlic cloves

2 tbsp. toasted sesame seeds

1 tbsp. rice wine vinegar

juice of 3 small mandarin oranges, roughly 1/4 cup

pinch of ground ginger

Combine all ingredients in a small mixing bowl; whisk rapidly until well-combined. Best if used immediately.

6 comments:

  1. First, let me say, welcome back! I've missed you so much in Blogland.

    Love these recipes! Thanks for sharing. My hubby is the same way with salad, but if I make, he'll eat it, even though he is too hot on it. Oh well:P Luckily, the kids love it though.

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  2. Thanks for the welcome back...missed you too! Hope you had a blessed holiday season, and that all is well with you and your beautiful family.
    Men are funny that way about the veggies, huh? I try to make it interesting, but he just refuses!

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  3. These look scrumptious! Can't wait to try them!

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  4. I am in need of new salad dressing recipes. thanks for the post!

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  5. Hi, I got here from Real Food Wednesday. I don't see an option for receiving posts via email? Wondering if you've thought about adding that option (like feedburner). Would love to follow your blog this way! :)

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  6. These look really good! Too often I wait until the last minute to think of the dressing. Since the first of the year, I've thought a lot about this and I need to make this more of a priority. I use really healthy commercial dressing (relatively speaking), but homemade WOULD be best.

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