What A Well-Dressed Salad Should Wear
3 easy-to-make homemade salad dressings.
Years ago I stumbled upon an old framed print at a thrift store. It was beat-up but the design made me laugh. It was a drawing of a fashionable tomato lady who had a lettuce body, carrot arms, and radish legs.
It was titled: What A Well Dressed Salad Should Wear. The tomato lady was surrounded by handwritten salad dressing recipes. I fell in love with it and bought it on the spot.
It has been hanging in my kitchen for over 20 years and has survived many moves. Because I’m quirky like that — I like art surrounding me even in the place I chop, whisk, stir and sizzle.
The salad dressings in this 1960s drawing are pretty heavy on oil and sour cream so I’ve never made any of them. But the long-forgotten artist did have a point.
A well-dressed salad should only wear the best.
And so here are 3 of some of my favorite homemade salad dressings. They are old recipes— I even have a recipe the Canadian Pacific Railway used in the early 1900s.
And my husband said I had to throw in the homemade salad dressing I’m famous for too. This is why he’s a keeper.
What A Well-Dressed Salad Should Wear:
French Dressing
OK, my friend Nesta is from the UK, however, she lived in Switzerland when she was young and this was one of her friend’s recipes. For French dressing.
So the UK, Switzerland, and France all met in this salad dressing.
P.S. And it only took me about 15 years to get the recipe out of her. It is a dark and rich tasting salad dressing and it is so good on pretty much everything. My aunt loved this dressing too (she pried it out of me!) and said you could eat it on toast. So far — I haven’t gone there. Yet. Try it and you’ll see.
1 tbsp sugar (adjust to taste)
Salt and pepper
1 garlic clove minced
2 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tsp Dijon mustard
4 tbsp balsamic vinegar
8 tbsp olive oil
Pinch of curry
Squeeze of lemon
Pinch of paprika
Whisk all ingredients together or zap it in the blender. Pour into a jar and it keeps well in the fridge for 2–3 weeks.
The Famous Canadian Pacific Railway Dressing
I found this CPR salad dressing in a vintage magazine years ago. I cut it out and have had it ever since. If an elegant national railway line thought it was good enough to serve in their fancy dining cars — well it is good enough for me.
It is delicious on a salad with loads of crunchy vegetables. It is similar in taste to a Russian salad dressing.
This is a dark dressing with a unique tang due to the malt vinegar, ketchup, and spices. Yum!
½ cup canola oil
¼ cup malt vinegar
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp salt
¼ cup of sugar
1/3 cup ketchup
1 tbsp dried minced onion or 2 tbsp fresh onion
2 tbsp lemon juice
Zap in a blender and serve. This lasts a couple of months in the fridge in a jar.
A Simple Lemon Vinaigrette
My lemon vinaigrette is a keeper and is light and perfect for a green salad. It is refreshing and make sure you use all of the lemon zest — it really adds zing.
(Serves 4 people or one salad-starved person)
4–5 tablespoons of olive oil
2 tablespoons of lemon juice* (about ½ lemon)
Zest from 1/2 lemon
½ tsp sugar
1 tsp Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper to taste
Whisk thoroughly. Taste it.
Really want to take this up a notch? Double the batch, put it into a clean jar you’ve got kicking around and put it in the fridge. It will easily last a week or more. Just give it a good shake before you use it.
OK — once you’ve tried these I want you to throw out all of your nasty, plastic store-bought salad dressings. Because life is short and that stuff makes it shorter.
Here’s to homemade salad dressing! It’s what all well-dressed salads secretly want.
Thanks for reading! I have loads of food essays (delicious recipes too) and thoughtful and quirky simpler living essays waiting for you. (Well over 100 of them!) And this story caught the attention of NBC News in New York!