Earlier (May 13) I posted my Caesar dressing recipe which has six ingredients in it. A name brand Caesar dressing at the store has over 20 ingredients. Among them are phosphoric acid, modified food starch, xanthum gum, carmel color, potassium sorbate, and calcium disodium EDTA (preservative).
Even the expensive Caesar dressing in the “Natural Foods” aisle of the store, which has no preservatives or artificial ingredients, still has xanthum gum and is mostly water. The first or second ingredient in all of the salad dressings I read at the store was water. I’m not sure why that is unless it’s to fill bottles as cheaply as possible, because I haven’t personally made a salad dressing yet with water. Almost all of the dressings also had sugar, except the cheap store brand had high fructose corn syrup instead.
I’ve made my own salad dressing a few times before but I never realized how easy it was until I met my mother-in-law who puts her own dressing on salad every time. After making my own dressing a few times, we went back to the store-bought balsamic vinaigrette that was in the frig because I was being too cheap to dump it out. No one liked it anymore. So I dumped it out. I soaked the label off in warm water, put the bottle through the dishwasher, and I filled it with my own balsamic vinaigrette by putting a 3 to 1 ratio of extra virgin olive oil to balsamic vinegar – and it came out great. For example, if you put one cup of extra virgin olive oil, then add 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar. We never need to buy salad dressing again.
It’s so easy and quick that I’m doing a little video here so you can see for yourself. I got home from work and had to get dinner out quickly. My son took the video – I didn’t exactly take time to prepare.
