Vinaigrette, along with the Statue of Liberty, is a wonderful gift from the French. Merci beaucoup, la France! I seem to think that vinaigrettes are underused and underappreciated in America. We tend to buy vinaigrettes and salad dressings that have chemicals and allergens like wheat and fish. Chemicals weaken our gut health, potentially causing bad health effects in our digestive, endocrine and immune systems. There are allergens found in common salad dressing that we might not even suspect.
Therefore, we would be better off if we made our vinaigrettes ourselves. First, they are super easy to make and require few easy-to-find ingredients. Secondly, there is so much variety when it comes to all the different kind of vinaigrettes that you can make. Vinaigrettes come in thick and thin consistencies and lots of different flavors.
The original vinaigrette recipe has none of the top 9 allergens - or even the top 16 allergens!! The recipe calls for wine vinegar (red or white), lemon juice, salt and pepper. Yes, you read that correctly. Only four (4) ingredients! So this vinaigrette recipe should be a staple in your home.
When I make vinaigrettes these days, I don’t measure all the different ingredients like I used to. Just know that ingredients like wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar or olive oil will be in higher quantity than the other ingredients like lemon juice or shallots. In general, the liquid ingredients make up the vinaigrette by a ratio of 4:1 or 3:1.
Want to turn the vinaigrette up a notch? No problem! Mastering the Art of French Cooking provides variations that add thickness , and some of them do have allergens like eggs and dairy. However, one easy way to add thickness to the vinaigrette is to simply add olive oil. Want to turn the vinaigrette up another notch? Add ingredients like chives, parsley, shallots, capers, herbs, tarragon or chervil. You could even do a combination of some of these ingredients. Again, lots of fun options here!
Once you start making vinaigrette, you’ll ask yourself why you even started buying salad dressings at all.