Bottled Salad Dressing

[Foodie_Penguin]

Bottled salad dressings make as much sense to me as "Salad In A Jar".

I would buy salad in a jar. I loathe making them but several of my household eaters demand them. I like to eat them, and find them interesting, but take little pleasure in making them.

After I cleaned my plate I could have this delicious treat.

We have some Ranch (carrot dipping and so forth, now that I think about it I have never seen one of my family actually put it on a salad).

A couple of kinds of vinegarettes concocted by my wife.

A big honking mason jar full of poppyseed dressing for adding to my favorite salad:Butter Lettuce, Grapefruit, and Avacado with a little thin, not too sweet poppyseed dressing.

Usually I don't put any kind of salad dressing on my salads (I always make them from scratch), but when I do, I make a dressing from any of the following:

red chilli flakes

EVOO

red wine vinegar

capers

chopped garlic

garlic salt

dried herbs

I do have Heinz Salad Cream (one of Heinz's 57 varieties in the UK) in the fridge but it's main use is for making tuna salad or potato salad...

[Basilgirl]

It's Marie's Premium Super Blue Cheese - 25% more cheesy chunklets!

[Katherine]

None, unless you want to count the jar of homemade mayo I use for many things, but not for dressing greens.

And I don't put pickles and ketchup on salads, so I don't count them as salad dressings, either.

[Squeat Mungry]

Like others, I stopped buying bottled dressings when I found out how easy they were to make, and that the homemade tasted better, so none for me. I don't have ketchup either, because I hate it!

[Jinmyo]

Often I just mush some limes in my hands over some frisee and don't bother with oil because the soft yolks from the poached eggs take care of any need for large molecules.

[Randi]

I have 6 open in the fridge, 1 unopened in the fridge, and 2 still in the pantry.

They are as follows:

Open:

Marie's Super Blue Cheese

Moosewood Restaurant Organic Feta and Garlic Greek Style Dressing

Annie's Naturals Goddess Dressing

Marie's Honey Mustard

Pfeiffer Roasted Garlic (with a 1/4/02 date - I think I'll toss that one!!)

Pfeiffer Caesar

Unopened:

Wegman's Italian Blue Cheese Vinaigrette (in the fridge)

Ellen Rose Oriental Dressing (pantry)

Trader Joe's Vidalia Onion Vinargrette (pantry)

Tanabutler - what's that bottle of TJ's worth to ya??

[Susan in FL]

Basilgirl, you're welcome, and I'll keep you posted on my mission to find out about the dressing. Cocoa is an hour from here, so this shouldn't be mission impossible!

Jinmyo, yesss.... I love your notion about how to satisfy the need for those large molecules.

[JumpinJude]

We have just one bottle, which is really a jar, and that is Marie's Blue Cheese... it's handy for dipping pizza crusts (husband) and for when (as someone mentioned) you don't get enough with the wings...

I remember I worked at a place in college who used really good blue cheese dressing - made by Duke's. I never see it, so maybe it's just for commercial use.

I make O/V-based dressings and I make Ranch, but from scratch.

[KateW]

1 bottle of Ranch for the fiance. I make my own variations of viniagrette for myself

[tommy]

or maybe i'm not offended by them because i just don't care enough to be bothered.

a bit of fine EVOO and red wine vinegar to perk up your apathy, tommy?? Do you always have such violent emotions on these subjects?

not usually violent GG. but yes, apathetic.

good call on the red wine vinegar. my new favorite (again). very little evoo. i like 'em acidic. and well seasoned. dried oregano is a must if onions are involved in the salad.

and i haven't come up with a quick and effective substitute for bottled ranch when you've got a bunch of people over watching a game and sucking down wings (made with frank's bottled hot sauce, of course of course.)

Edited July 24, 2004 by tommy (log)

[phaelon56]

I love the Marie's Blue Cheese dressing but as an accompaniment to Buffalo style chicken wings. eGullet has inspired me to start makign my own dressings and I've been playing around lately with pomegrante juice as an ingredient - very versatile.

My latest gripe is that no one in my area carries a good quality red cider vinegar. It's all Heinz or store brand. Ebery othe rkind of vinegar imaginable but no Maille or other better brand of cider vindegar. I haven't checked the local Dean and Deluca yet (I'm visiting in Charlotte NC this weekend) but it appears to be my last resort.

[lesfen]

I'm a dry salad person myself, but I do have a bottle of Wishbone Italian (chicken marinade) and a bottle of Ken's Country French, for the man of the house.

[Susan G]

I have two:

Newman's Own Balsamic Vinegrette

Moosewood's Ginger Miso

I make my own dressings only about 50% of the time.

[adoxograph]

1. One bottle of Ranch. I hate it, but such are the whims of the boy...

2. What is salad-in-a-jar?????

[Brad Ballinger]

Currently three, none store-bought

1. Orange-vanilla vinaigrette

2. "Standard" vinaigrette (herbs, garlic, dijon, etc.) from Moosewood's cookbook

3. Raspberry vinaigrette (fresh raspberries were all over the farmers' market last weekend)

[fresco]

The only thing I have approaching bottled salad dressing is Hellman's mayo.

But I have encountered people, and recently, who were genuinely amazed at the thought that salad dressings do not have to come from a bottle and indeed, regarded this is as magic or alchemy.

Such, I guess, is the power of advertising.

[stephenc]

I have five.

Wishbone Italian

Wishbone Bleu Cheese

Ken's raspberry vinegreatte

Hidden Valley Ranch

Annes Green Garlic

[bilrus]

I have five in mine on a fairly regular basis.

Marie's Blue Cheese - as many have said for Buffalo Wings

Marie's Thousand Island - For saucing Ruebens and or other corned beef / pastrami sandwiches

Hidden Valley Ranch - I combine this with Hot sauce as a dip for some "Southwest eggrolls" I like to make I make my own ranch too (from the CIA Professional Chef's book), but it is too much hassle for the one ramekin I need for this.

Kraft French Dressing - I like it on tomatoes sometimes - you got a problem with that?

Peter Luger's steak sauce - Hated the one bite of steak I had with it at the restaurant, but really liked it with the Tomato and Onion.

So I guess I only bring down the average a little bit.

[bilrus]

1. Orange-vanilla vinaigrette

Like a dreamsicle?

[lyz2814]

maries blue cheese.

I make balsamic dijon vinaigrette, and keep that in the fridge. Sometimes I make it w/ rasberry vinegar and a little sugar if I want something sweeter (for bitter greens, etc.).

I very occasionally buy the HVR packets, and make my own "lite" ranch w/ yogurt, mayo and buttermilk. I usually add a lot of cracked pepper and some chipotle paste--spicy ranch.

[Toliver]

I usually add a lot of cracked pepper and some chipotle paste--spicy ranch.

Okay, now that rocks. I have got to try this. How much chipotle paste do you use per single batch? Given my past record in the kitchen, I'd probably overdo the heat factor (Hello, my name is Toliver and I'm a Chile Head ).

[robyn]

7, and they are all the wife's.

Right - blame it all on the little woman .

We have 4 - Briana's Vinaigrette and Blush Wine Vinaigrette - Oak Hill Farms Vidalia Onion - and Newman's Caesar. I am an expert on shelf lives - because we don't use a lot of salad dressing - bottled or homemade (a tablespoon of oil has a lot of calories whether the dressing is in a bottle or homemade). I can tell you that all of these dressings can last for months and months - maybe years. Robyn

[Naomi]

Hellman's mayo and heinz salad cream. Absolute essentials.

Usually there is also a small jar containing my own mix of oil, something acidic, bit of english mustard, pinch of sugar, s&p.

That's it.

[lyz2814]

Toliver, I use about 1/2 tsp of chipotle paste (made by whizzing the contents of a chipotles w/ adobo can in the blender), which makes it spicy and smoky. I have gone up to 1 tsp (yea, I'm a wimp), but I find that the longer it sits, the hotter it gets. YMMV.

[JennotJenn]

One. Seeds of Change Italian. Too sweet, but serving its purpose, which is to dress side salads while we're in the process of moving/renovating. Our dinners have consisted of grilled meat, potato chips, and boxed (earthbound farms) salad w/commerically prepared salad dressing. That way there's zero rinsing, chopping or dishwashing. Not the way I love to live, but it's not so bad.

Once we're back to normal, it'll be lemon juice-sea salt-EVOO-anchovy-garlic or ranch in a pack mixed w/sour cream (it's good on really spicy grilled chicken salad).