Let's be honest, the best part of any salad is the dressing, but I feel like most store-bought dressings fall a little bit flat.
They're not usually made with the highest quality ingredients.
They can taste a little bit processed and they're not particularly healthy.
But today we're going to fix that because we're going to make our own five wholesome, completely different homemade salad dressings that take just like five minutes to whip up.
So let's get right into it.
If you're a balsamic lover, this first dressing is for you.
It's our balsamic Dijon dressing, and it comes together in just a couple of minutes.
So first just grab a jar and add in a third of a cup of balsamic vinegar, a quarter of a cup of extra virgin olive oil, two tablespoons of Dijon mustard, two crushed cloves of garlic, a tablespoon of agave or maple syrup, two teaspoons of onion powder and an eighth of a teaspoon of black pepper.
Then just give this one a really good whisk and you're ready to use it.
This dressing pairs especially well with mixed greens and veggie salads that maybe have some fruit like mango or strawberry in it.
The tartness of the vinegar and the sweetness of the fruit is just a lovely pairing.
If you'd also like a great salad that pairs well with the dressings that we're making today, we actually built out a whole brand new collection in our app that has a whole bunch of dressings and all these different salads that go well with them.
I'll link that link for you below.
This next dressing is for my herb lovers.
This is our green goddess dressing.
This time, instead of a jar, you're gonna grab either a blender or a small food processor.
So we're gonna add in two thirds of a cup of unsweetened yogurt I'm using soy yogurt plus a third of a cup of vegan mayo, two tablespoons of lemon juice, which is the juice from about one lemon, a quarter of a cup each of fresh chives and parsley and about two tablespoons each of fresh basil and dill.
In general, we're just adding about three quarters of a cup of fresh herbs, and you can add them in any combination that you'd like.
Mint would also work great here.
This is just my favorite combo.
Then we can add in two cloves of garlic, a tablespoon of maple syrup, half of a tablespoon each of capers and miso paste and optionally a little pinch of salt.
Then just blend this all up until it's creamy and gorgeously green.
Then you can pour it into a jar and you're good to go.
Oh, they're so good.
This is my favorite one, man.
This one is just magic.
Drizzled over leafy greens or chopped veggies, nourishables, honestly anything.
This one is so versatile and so delicious.
So all the dressings that we're making today make enough for several servings.
But if you're looking for just enough for a single serving salad, you can actually use the scaling feature that's on both our website and in our app to scale it to the amount that you'd like to make.
It's probably the best salad I've ever made.
Ever.
This next dressing is for anyone who doesn't shy away from big flavor.
It's our shallot vinaigrette.
So I've got a medium shallot here that I've very thinly sliced, and we're just gonna add this to our jar along with a quarter of a cup of white wine vinegar.
But you could use apple cider vinegar or regular white vinegar.
And the reason I love this dressing so much is that generally I just like shallots and onions in my salads, but they can be very sharp and very intense.
And so when you let it mellow out and sit in this vinegar you're kind of like pickling.
It takes away some of that sharpness and in turn it also flavors the dressing.
Then we can add in a third of a cup of extra virgin olive oil, a quarter of a cup of maple syrup, two teaspoons of Dijon mustard and about an eighth of a teaspoon each of salt and black pepper.
Once it's all mixed together, you can already add it to your favorite salad.
It pairs really well with lentil or grain-based salads or salads that have really hearty greens, like this green bean salad, for example.
That is better than you think.
That is so good.
Mmm!
This next one is for the creamy dressing lovers.
It's our tahini vinaigrette.
You know the drill by now.
Grab a jar, but this time, we're gonna add to it half of a cup of golden creamy tahini.
Some store-bought tahinis are made from raw sesame seeds, so they're very pale in color.
Don't buy those ones.
You wanna buy the one that's golden in color.
It means the sesame seeds have been lightly toasted.
It gives a lovely, rich flavor to the dressing.
To that we're gonna add half of a cup of water, about two tablespoons of lemon juice, a tablespoon each of olive oil and red wine vinegar, one clove of crushed garlic, half of a teaspoon each of ground cumin and paprika powder and finally an eighth of a teaspoon of salt, and just give this all a good mix.
At first.
This dressing is gonna look way too runny, like you've done something wrong, but you haven't.
Keep going.
This is a little bit of food chemistry actually at play here.
So nut butters and seed butters like tahini.
They have starches and proteins in them that soak up the water and it thickens up the mixture as you continue to stir.
But that's the thing.
You just gotta keep stirring and then you're gonna see, it's gonna transform into a creamy, luscious dressing.
This dressing is rich, nutty and full of warm, earthy flavors, and it pairs really well with roasted veggie salads like nourish bowls, simple chopped salads like the one you see here, or grain-based salads.
This next dressing is for the Asian-inspired salad lovers.
It's our sesame ginger dressing, and it comes together in just a couple of minutes.
All right, just grab a jar and juice in one lime to start.
Then we can add in three tablespoons each of rice vinegar and soy sauce, and then two tablespoons each of toasted sesame oil, agave syrup and grated ginger, and then lastly, a teaspoon of toasted sesame seeds.
Then we can pop the lid onto it, give it a good shake, and it's ready to pour.
This dressing is especially delicious with cabbage salads or noodle-based salad bowls.
It's savory, tangy, a little sweet, and totally addictive.
I hope you love all of these dressings as much as I do.
And I'm curious to know which one you're going to try first.
But all of the dressing recipes themselves are on our website and all of the salads are in our app.
So I'll link everything for you in the description box below.
Thanks so much for hanging with me today, friends.
I really appreciate it.
Pickle Blinds signing off and I'll see you in the next video.
The best part of any salad is the dressing.
Would you agree?
No, that's really cheesy.
So bad.
You know... The dressing... At first, this might look... The full dressing... That's it.
Five... I'm gonna pick up a lime.
Come on.
Okay, I'll do that again.
