Dressed to Thrill

week 3 of salad boot camp, never use store-bought dressing again

salad w/ our buttermilk cilantro dressing, recipe below

You’ve made it to week 3 of Salad Bootcamp and WE COULDN’T BE PROUDER. So far you’ve learned how to pick, wash, and chop your lettuce, how to use add-ins and toppers for your salad for maximum taste and nutrition, and finally we’re on one of the last and most crucial pieces of the puzzle: dressing. 

Salad dressing AKA lettuce sauce is just something to slather over a salad to add much needed flavor. While a good salad dressing will lift up the whole dish and tie that shit together, most store-bought salad dressings are no good. They’re high in calories, low in flavor, and stuffed so full of fillers that there’s no reason to even twist that cap off. Trust us, making dressings at home is the way to go.

Most store-bought salad dressings use subpar oils and acids when making their products because the product has to be shelf stable for a long time and cheap to produce to compete against the 3 billion other dressings on the shelf. Using canola or soybean oil instead of extra virgin olive means the resulting dressing is cheaper for them to make, will keep for longer sitting on the shelf, and is devoid of any flavor the olive oil could have brought to the table. The inferior vinegars like white and other acids are never really present in the taste, hidden in the background with the xantham gum used to emulsify the dressing so it doesn’t separate in the bottle and look unappealing on the shelf. These companies aren’t trying to help you make a delicious salad. They’re just trying to get their bottle in your cart as fast as possible and hope you don’t have a discerning palate.

reading any label off a store-bought dressing

To compensate for the lack of tasty ingredients, companies shove as much salt and sugar in their dressings as they can handle. Hidden Valley’s iconic Ranch Dressing has more than 10% of your daily sodium needs in their suggested serving size of 2 tablespoons. First of all, not a single person alive has ever eaten less than 2 tablespoons of ranch in a serving so this size seems comically small. Even airplane salads have more dressing than that. Second, you know you’re gonna salt and pepper that dressing anyways so expect your salad to be a secret sodium bomb waiting to go off. Maybe you think you’re being healthy by grabbing a bottle of fat-free Raspberry Pecan dressing from Ken’s. What you’re actually buying is a mouthful of artificial colors, 20% of your daily sugar allowance, and 13% of your daily sodium. This is all trash. It takes almost no time and effort to make your own dressing and the results will be 10000% better tasting and better for you than anything you find at the store. Let us show you how.

There’s a fuckton of solid salad dressing recipes in our cookbooks and on our site . The Horseradish and Dill Dressing from our latest book, Brave New Meal , is so damn addictive that we ate salads covered in it with Old Bay Croutons on top for like 6 months straight. And yes, that recipe is included below. But truthfully, we rarely make jars of dressing to keep in the fridge. We’re too finicky, always wanting something new and different with each meal. So we usually dress each salad while it’s in the bowl. We know that sounds crazy but we can teach you to do it too.

proper salad shoveling technique

Most salads we eat are dressed in some sort of vinaigrette because they’re easy to make and versatile. But that doesn’t mean they have to be boring. Maybe it was the bottomless pit of balsamic vinaigrettes we had to muscle down when we were growing up but we don’t believe in using only one acid in a dressing. Adding multiple vinegars and acids to a dressing makes for a much more interesting and savory salad. Plus, once you come up with your favorite combo, your house dressing will be totally unique to you. These are the vinegars and acids we always keep stocked:

• red wine vinegar

• white wine vinegar

• seasoned or unseasoned rice vinegar

• sherry vinegar

• fresh lemons

As for oils, 95% of the time we use extra virgin olive oil for our salad dressings. It’s tasty, affordable, and goes with pretty much everything. Occasionally we’ll use avocado oil if we want something more neutral tasting or we’ll sneak in some toasted sesame oil if we’re looking for a nutty flavor. But really, it’s extra virgin olive oil for nearly every salad we make.

naked salad waiting to be dressed

So you have your bowl of lettuce, you’ve thrown in all your seasoned add-ins and you’re ready to dress this shit. Grab 2-3 of your vinegars and get ready. Although there’s lots of debate in the cooking world on the best order to add ingredients to the bowl, we’ve always believed that adding the vinegar first makes for a better tasting salad. Cook’s Illustrated even found some science to back that up but honestly, it’s just our preference. Adding the vinegar first helps the salad taste more evenly seasoned and therefore, more flavorful. 

Lightly drizzle each vinegar you’re using over the lettuce until you get about 2 tablespoons total  of vinegar for every 6 cups of salad. If you aren’t confident in your drizzling skills, measure out the vinegars first so you can start to understand how much 2 tablespoons is as you pour. Also, 6 cups might sound like a lot of lettuce but realistically that's two side salads so calm the fuck down. 

Now drizzle over about 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Standard French vinaigrettes have a 3:1 oil to vinegar ratio but most of the time that shit is wayyyy too heavy for salads with solid produce in them. So we prefer a 2:1 vinegar to oil ratio. Once you get the hang of this, play around with the ratio and see what you think tastes best. You’re the motherfucking authority on your meals, don’t forget that.

no disrespect when salads are present

After adding all the liquids, sprinkle over a little salt, some fresh ground pepper, and any herbs or dry spices that you’re feeling. Adding the dried herbs and spices here is another great place to add more depth of flavor to the salad and give your dressing some extra character. Just keep it to less than 2 teaspoons total of any dried herbs and spices you add now. Sometimes we’ll add some fresh garlic here too. Start conservatively because you can always add more later, if you add too much too quick you’re just making problems for yourself. At this point some of our most common additions are:

• grated fresh garlic clove

• garlic powder (a great lazy choice)

• celery seed

• zaatar

• everything bagel seasoning

• Ground sumac

• any dried herb we wish we had fresh like mint or basil

Now toss the hell outta that bowl and taste a couple leaves. Taste flat? Add more acid. Taste a little too leafy? Drizzle over a lil more oil. Want a bolder flavor? Toss in a few more herbs or spices. It’s always easier to add more of whatever than it is to try and remove dressing from a salad. If it’s tasting soggy just add a little bit more lettuce to help redistribute the dressing. It’s really not rocket science but you have to taste what you’re cooking as you go. Once the leaves are tasting right, mix in your toppers and maybe more fresh pepper and toss again. Taste to ensure that it’s perfect then serve that fucker up. Dressing the salad should be the last thing you do because a wilted salad bums everyone out.

Dressing your salads in the bowl is easy and lets you naturally mix shit up without much effort. Blending the acids right there means each salad is gonna be a little different from the last because your proportions will always vary. Plus it’s a great way to get more comfortable with cooking on the fly, trusting your own tastes and senses. You’re the expert on your own salad saga, so make it according to your taste. If you’re not ready to take your cooking skills to that next level, here are a bunch of great make ahead dressings to get you off your store-bought shame. If there’s only one thing you learn from this whole series make this be it: DO NOT BUY SALAD DRESSING.

Horseradish Dill Dressing

½ cup sliced or slivered almonds

½ cup hot water

¼ cup olive oil

¼ cup cashew butter, tahini, or almond butter

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

2 tablespoons champagne vinegar

1 to 2 tablespoons prepared horseradish, store-bought  

or homemade  

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1 tablespoon minced fresh dill

Pinch of salt

Put the almonds in a glass with hot water and let those fuckers soak for about 15 minutes. 

When the almonds start feeling sorta soft, throw them in a food processor or blender with half of the water they soaked in. Add the olive oil, cashew butter, lemon juice, vinegar, horseradish, and garlic. Blend it all up until there are no more large almond pieces and it starts to look kinda creamy. You know what the fuck dressing should look like, come on.

Add the dill and salt and run it again for another 5 seconds just so it gets chopped up. Chill until you are ready to eat. 

Almond Caesar Dressing

1/3 cup sliced or slivered almonds

1/3 cup hot water 

¼ cup olive oil

2 tablespoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon seasoned rice vinegar

1-2 cloves of garlic

1 tablespoon capers

Put the almonds in a glass with hot water and let those fuckers soak for about 15 minutes. Chop up the garlic. When the almonds start feeling sorta soft, throw them in a food processor or blender with the water they soaked in, the olive oil, lemon juice, mustard, vinegar, and garlic. Blend it all up until there are no more large almond pieces and it starts to look kinda creamy. You should know what the fuck Caesar dressing should look like, come on. Add the capers and run it again for another 5 seconds just so they get chopped up. Chill until you are ready to eat. Serve it over your favorite lettuce with homemade croutons because you know how to live.

Hippie Dressing

3 tablespoons nooch

1 shallot, minced

1 clove garlic, minced

3 tablespoons rice vinegar

2 tablespoon soy sauce or tamari

2 tablespoons water

1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 teaspoons maple syrup

1/4 cup olive oil

First make the dressing by mixing  together the nooch, shallot, garlic, vinegar, soy sauce, water, lemon juice, maple syrup, and oil in a small glass and set that shit aside. This will separate as it sits so don’t worry, you didn’t do anything wrong.

Buttermilk Cilantro Dressing 

1/4 cup cashew butter, tahini, or almond butter 

1/4 cup warm water

 3 tablespoons lemon juice (about 1 ½ lemons) 

¼ cup white wine or champagne vinegar 

1 shallot, chopped or ¼ chopped white onion 

3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro 

1/2 teaspoon salt 

Pinch of pepper 

1/4 cup olive oil

Throw all the lettuce and salad ingredients in a large bowl and stick them in the fridge. 

Now make the dressing. Add the cashew butter, warm water, lemon juice, vinegar, and shallot all into a blender or food processor and run that shit until it’s all smooth. Add the cilantro, salt, pepper, and olive oil and run one more time until the cilantro is in little pieces and the oil is all mixed in and emulsified. 

Serve right away or stick that shit in the fridge to chill, where it will thicken up a little as it sits. Toss it over your salad a couple tablespoons at a time until you find the right mix. Best if eaten within 3 days because the fresh herbs start to get all sad after that.

---

Thanks again for joining us here in The Broiler Room. Michelle had a minor emergency neck surgery last week so our apologies for the delay in the newsletter this week. We appreciate all your comments, questions and emails every week so keep that shit coming. 

Michelle and Matt