Each week, I pick up my bag of organic produce from our nearby healthy eatery and find renewed inspiration to mix up some fresh picked greens with my homemade salad dressing. I love that my produce is local and sustainably grown and that the ingredients in my salad dressing are natural. I’m not a purist, but, I do appreciate healthy food that doesn’t require learning ingredient names with a dictionary.

Making your own dressing is simple and fun to personalize. You can almost never mess it up, even if you don’t use a measuring spoon. Mix it in a cruet or use any small sealed container to shake it up one last time before adding to your salad.

The following is one of my favorite dressing recipes that I keep on hand for the summer.

Asian Sesame Dressing

Print

It’s delicious over chopped greens, spinach, or sliced cucumbers. Or, for a satisfying summer dinner, I add cooked chicken, almonds, green onions, and Chinese noodles.

Ingredients

• ¼ cup seasoned rice vinegar
• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• 2 tsp sesame oil
• ¼ tsp kosher salt
• ½ tsp black pepper

Instructions

1. Shake well and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Notes

*Due to the different product brands you may find at your local grocery store and their varied nutritionals, we are unable to provide nutritional information for this recipe.

Sweet and Tangy Sour Cream Dressing

Print

My Sweet and Tangy Sour Cream Dressing, below, has been called addictive by a few of my friends. It’s great tossed in fresh broccoli, a few bacon bits, and sunflower seeds.
I also like it over cubed, smoked turkey breast with chopped celery, red grapes and walnuts. Be creative, I really don’t think you can go wrong using it on any salad!

Ingredients

• ¼ cup light sour cream
• ¼ cup light mayonnaise
• 2 Tbsp Seasoned rice vinegar
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• ½ tsp black pepper

Instructions

1. Whisk until smooth, refrigerate until ready to serve.

Notes

*Due to the different product brands you may find at your local grocery store and their varied nutritionals, we are unable to provide nutritional information for this recipe.

Want to learn more about making your own vinaigrettes? Check out these articles on fullcircle.com and allreceipes.com.

---

Stephanie Allen is Co-founder and President of Dream Dinners and a New York Times best-selling co-author of The Hour that Matters Most. Naturally a visionary and optimist, Stephanie hopes to inspire America through her nurturing voice of encouragement, assuring families… “You’re doing a great job!”