Making your own salad dressing

I have no particular recipe, but I start with a good virgin olive oil. I've also gotten ideas from commerical brands, but I do my own version to avoid things like high fructose corn syrup and inferior oils at inflated prices. I also get ideas about making soup from canned soup. I can't remember when I last ate soup from a can (probably college), like dressing, the main ingredient seems to be salt. Most of my recipes start by my checking out what is in the garden and fridge and then I wing it.

(edited for clarity, something I often lack)

Yes, I do make my own - mostly balsamico vinegar & olive oil w/salt and pepper, but for cucumber salad, I like to take dill and a touch of ranch dressing.

Another dressing: tomatoes, garlic cloves, olive oil and balsamico
mixed in the blender, season with salt/pepper to taste.

Here are some recipes using walnut oil -


PEAR SALAD WITH MIXED GREENS AND
WALNUTS (from Cooks.com)
1 med. shallot
1/2 c. olive oil
1 1/2 tbsp. walnut oil
1 1/2 tbsp. red wine vinegar
1 tbsp. Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
Freshly ground pepper

Mince shallots in food processor. With machine running, add both oils, vinegar, mustard, sugar and salt and pepper and mix 10 seconds.

SALAD:
1 1/2 tbsp. walnut oil
1/2 c. walnut pieces
2 tbsp. sugar
1 lg. firm Bartlett pear, unpeeled, halved, and cored
10 c. torn mixed greens including at least 1 of the bitter greens such as watercress, arugula or endive

Heat walnut oil in heavy medium saucepan over medium heat. Add nuts and sugar. Cook until light brown; stir frequently. Transfer to a bowl to cool. Core and halve the pears.
Cut each pear half lengthwise into 1/4 inch slices. Transfer to a shallow bowl. Pour dressing over (can be done 2 hours ahead). Cover and chill.

Wash greens; tear into bite-size pieces and combine in large salad bowl. Add dressing to greens and toss gently. Divide greens among plates. Take pears from dish with slotted spoon and put 3-4 pear slices atop each. Sprinkle with walnuts. Serves 4.


Here's a Jacques Pepin recipe that includes a simple walnut oil dressing -
link at bottom of recipe

Salad Tulipe with Walnut Dressing

Yield: 6 servings

This salad is a flavorful combination of field salad, pecans, pears, goat cheese, and walnut-oil dressing. The field or corn salad (doucette or mâche in French) is planted around the end of August and gets large enough to be ready for picking at the end of November. After the first frost, it becomes sweeter and tenderer. If these greens are not available, the salad can be made with a mesclun mixture, widely available now in most supermarkets.

The pears must be ripe; Bartlett, Comice, or Anjou pears

36 to 40 segments field or corn salad (mâche)
(6 to 8 pieces per person), or 6 cups mesclun salad greens, thoroughly rinsed and dried
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
30 pecan halves
Pinch salt
3 ripe pears (Bartlett, Comice, or Anjou)
1 tablespoon lemon juice for pears
1 teaspoon coarsely cracked black pepper
(see illustrated mignonnette technique, page 30)
3/4 pound goat cheese, preferably the small, round, semi-hard variety


Walnut Dressing

1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
2 tablespoons walnut oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
1 tablespoon peanut or safflower oil
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Try to keep each individual bunch of field salad attached together. Pinch off the bottom of the root from each, and rinse the salad carefully in cold water. Dry in a salad spinner.
Place the butter on a small baking tray, and heat in the 375-degree oven for about a minute to melt. Scatter the pecans and the salt over the butter, toss together, and bake for 6 to 8 minutes, until nicely browned. Set aside. The pecans should be served at room temperature.

Halve the three pears lengthwise, then core, peel, and cut each half into three pieces. Sprinkle with lemon juice to prevent discoloration, then sprinkle with the cracked pepper. Cut the goat cheese into small wedges.

For the dressing: Whisk the vinegar, walnut oil, salt, pepper, and peanut oil in a small bowl.

Put three pieces of pear near the edge of each plate with wedges of cheese and pecans between. Arrange bunches of field salad in the center of the plates, and sprinkle approximately 2 teaspoons of dressing on each salad. Serve immediately.

http://topchefs.chef2chef.net/recipes-2/pepin/salad-tulipe-walnut-dressing.htm


(sorry, I don't know what mignonnette technique is.)





My salads would be simpler than these, hey, I'd just toss some walnut pieces in with some leaves, but the recipes give me Ideas.

Here's a cooks.com recipe using a dressing with rice wine vinegar.

I might do this without the crab; if I used crab, it would be fresh...
and if I had fresh crab around, this probably wouldn't be the recipe.

http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1645,156181-244205,00.html

CUCUMBER AND CRAB SALAD
4 cucumbers, sliced thin, unpeeled
1 tbsp. salt
1 (6 oz.) can crab

DRESSING:
1/4 c. light soy sauce
1/8 c. rice wine vinegar
1/2 tbsp. sesame oil
Pinch of sugar

Mix the cucumbers with salt. Place in a colander and the salt and water from the cucumbers will drain off. Drain for about 45 minutes. Mix with the crab.

Make a dressing of the light soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil and sugar. Toss with the crab/cucumber mixture and serve. Serves 6.

These ingredients are available in any oriental food store or a good supermarket.

Over the years I have both made and bought dressings. If it meant my sons ate salad I was willing to keep Catalina for one and Zesty Italian for the other on hand. Now they're grown up and prefer my simple olive oil/red wine vinegar concoction (heavy on the vinegar because we like it with bite) especially if I make a Greek salad. I'm willing to eat salad plain especially if I'm out and concerned about the fat content in some restaurant dressings.
Sometimes if I have leftovers (bruised raspberries for instance) I throw them in the salad dressing. The one store-bought dressing that I do like is the sun-dried tomato one from Kraft (don't have any on hand, hope that's what it's called).

I also have no recipe. I prefer a simple olive oil and balsamic spritz. Sometimes I get fancy and add some herbs and mustard, or garlic and onion.

Bleu Cheese Dressing:

Mix until you have a pleasant consistency equal parts of:

Buttermilk
commercial mayonnaise

Add as much bleu cheese as pleases you.

This thread is making me hungry..

We use Newmans Own for putting in with potatoes to steam in a foil pack over the grille. (Lime, Walnut, dried tom) Newmans has less salt than most. (look at the g of Na on the side).

Wemake a few, mostly with oil, garlic, balsamic and pepper, or oil rice vinegar and fig chunks. Nothing good is ever complicated.
A standard homemade is a hot sweet and sour dressing to put over dandelion greens or endive.

I like dandelion greens and endive.... tell us more about the sweet and sour?

My first reaction was:

Well, nobody else makes it for me, so I guess I have to make my own!
Only when I read the post I remembered that you can actually buy it in bottles...

I guess that answers the questions, I never buy bottles.
I do not have a favourite recipe either, though.

I user Vinegar, oil, mustard, salt, pepper, onion and herbs for lettuce.
Sour Cream, vinegar, salt and pepper for tomatoe and cucumber.
Mayonnaise, stock, vinegar, mustard, pepper, salt, onions for potatoes.

And I have a special sauce for pasta salad, but I don't have it here.

I both buy and make; it depends on how busy my life is. I'm currently using a gingery spritzer thing, might try to recreate it myself.

Me too.

Except, about once a year, I have to get a bottle of the Bleu Cheese Dressing from Fresh Direct. mmmmm. It reminds me of some I had in Eureka Springs, Arkansas called "Too Bleu for You".

Joe(nothing is too bleu.)Nation

Osso-Its a Hot bacon dressing that is sweet and sour. I found a recipe that (sort of ) duplicates my wifes family recipe but ours doesnt have the celery in it (I dont know why anyone would need celery in this) Also, my wifes has a little Pilsudsky mustard.HOT BACON DRESSING RECIPE

THIS dressing is drizzled (ever so lightly cause its sweet and sour) over the cold dandelion greens or endive. Its a Pennsylfawnisch Deitsche Rezept. Es is gut fer essen mit der Schnitz un Knepp.

That hot bacon dressing is really nice on spinach too.

I've never seen a recipe quite like that.... sounds gooooooood.

ha! I remember that hot bacon recipe from high school home ec days. it was yum - popular on spinach salad in roadhouse style restos in the 1980's.

It's nearly the same dressing used on hot German Potato Salad.

Yummy! Nice thread :-D

Like Jes, I make my own, but buy some store bought if I don't have much time.

I also use oils (extra virgin Olive and Sesame oil) vinegar, along with whatever herbs I feel like throwing in there, with sea salt & pepper.

Started an herb garden this year, so I'm throwing them in most of what I'm cooking these days.