The best salad dressing you’ve never tasted

I gained a bunch of weight in high school but lost the extra pounds in my early 20s. In between, I struggled with what to eat and demonized foods I now view as perfectly fine to enjoy in moderation. Salad dressing was verboten for several years. Instead, I’d add a squirt of lemon or rice wine vinegar. Serviceable but not outrageously delicious.

While I understand some people restrict fats for various reasons, I focus on eating wholesome homemade foods, fat be damned. But because I don’t load up on processed foods or junk (and exercise a lot), I don’t have a weight or cholesterol problem, and I bear no guilt for treating myself to a salad with yummy dressing.

Cooking from scratch is a retirement hobby that pays huge dividends.

My favorite indulgence as a teenager (when not dieting) was a chef’s salad with thousand island dressing. I still love it. There’s just something so satisfying about creamy but slightly tart thousand island on crisp greens, ham, turkey, cheese and hard-cooked eggs. As for the dressing, it seems not a lot of places serve it anymore. Or if they do, it’s not house made.

Another dressing that’s hard to find is Roquefort. Marie’s, the premium dressing sold in a jar in the refrigerated section of the grocery store, used to have Roquefort. When they discontinued it, I actually wrote them a letter. The response was something along the lines of it not being cost-effective. Their blue cheese is still good, and we use it sparingly.

We often go with olive oil and balsamic vinegar or just plain old red wine vinegar or even Italian mixed up from the Good Seasons packet, but our favorite is an oldie we found in a Los Angeles Times cookbook, circa 1981. They call it French dressing, although it bears no resemblance to any French dressing I’ve ever tasted. We call it The Pink Stuff.

The Pink Stuff is easy to make. The taste is peppery with a pungent mustard backdrop and a hint of sweetness from the red wine. It’s fantastic over any kind of greens, including spinach. Mostly I just drizzle it on because it’s convenient and doesn’t use an extra dish, but as is the case with most salad dressings, less is more.

My spinach salad in the picture was a wee bit overdressed but still fantastic. Ideally, you toss a small amount of dressing with your greens in a big bowl to lightly but evenly distribute the tasty goodness.

This recipe calls for simple ingredients we keep on hand anyway. We store peanut oil in the refrigerator because we don’t use it that much, and it can go rancid. The oil solidifies in the fridge, so you need to take it out ahead of time or run hot water over the bottle to re-liquify. The bottle we buy is too tall for the microwave.

Pro Tip. Go ahead. Save the big bowl and pour The Pink Stuff directly on your salad. Just not too much.

The Pink Stuff (French Dressing)

Punched with flavor and unlike anything resembling what you might think of as French dressing, this recipe was originally published by the Los Angeles Times California Cookbook (1981). It was said to be the house dressing at Le St. Germain, a fine French restaurant in Hollywood I believe no longer exists.
Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Ingredients
  

  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp black pepper
  • 1/4 tsp white pepper
  • 1 tbsp Dijon-style mustard
  • 1 tsp hot dry mustard
  • 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
  • 3 tbsp red wine
  • 1/4 cup peanut oil

Instructions
 

  • Combine salt, black pepper, white pepper and mustards and mix well with a whisk. Add vinegar and wine, and beat until smooth. Slowly add oil and beat with a whisk until slightly thickened.

9 thoughts on “The best salad dressing you’ve never tasted”

  1. Sounds good. I have to say I don’t recall mixing peanut oil and red wine vinegar before. It sounds intriguing. I don’t usually have white pepper on hand because I eat tons of black pepper, rough cracked in big chunks to my liking.

    I’ll give it a go.

    1. I also use tons of black pepper, so I think you’ll love it. Especially with more cracked black pepper on top!

  2. I ‘ll try it. Love me a good vinaigrette. Thx for the recipe! We try hard to avoid carbs and dairy and eat mostly plant based but we do love seafood. I love your blog. So real…

    1. I hope you like it! And thank you for the kind words. As a writer, I can’t think of a greater compliment than being real.

  3. The overdressed salad, lol.
    Never thought of using wine in a salad dressing, but I’m definately gonna try.
    I often buy a mix of spinach, arugula and very little swiss chard leafs. I think, it’s delicious with your recipe.
    Thank you, Donna!

    1. I think you will love it, especially with that mix of spinach, arugula and swiss chard. Sounds yummy!

  4. Looks yummy and I’m going to try it. Most of the time I just do lemon juice, olive oil or avocado oil. crushed garlic and salt and pepper.
    BTW, how did you get the ‘print on the recipe to work’ I’ve never seen that in a blog.

    1. Yours sounds delicious, too. As for the recipe, it’s a WordPress plug-in called WordPress Recipe Maker. I believe your blog is on WordPress. The plug-in is free. I got the recommendation from Linda at Retired Introvert. Works great!

Comments are closed.