These recipes from Samin Nosrat, the “Salt Fat Acid Heat” author, will have you reaching for your greens all summer long.
Keep homemade dressings on hand in your fridge, and all kinds of big salads become in reach.Rachel Vanni for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Spencer Richards.
This article is part of Cooking 101, our series on kitchen fundamentals. Every episode covers a different technique, tool or ingredient, and each host shares the tips and recipes that they believe will set you up for success, no matter where you are in your cooking journey. Watch all the episodes on YouTube, and view all the recipes on New York Times Cooking.
While I’ll always have warm feelings for a few store-bought salad dressings (I’m looking at you, Hidden Valley ranch seasoning), the thought of coating fresh lettuce with bottled ingredients of indeterminate age and provenance makes my heart hurt.
After you’ve taken the time to combine fresh vegetables, grains and other ingredients into something that sings, you want to add to the harmony, not overwhelm it. In that way, I like to think of salad dressings as the Darlene Love of the kitchen. Like Ms. Love, perhaps the most brilliant backup singer of all time, a good dressing enhances without overshadowing it. And there’s no better way to ensure that than making your own.
As a young restaurant cook, I was taught that each salad must have its own bespoke dressing. Preparing one might involve blending an herb oil for mayonnaise base or seeding, juicing, mashing, roasting or zesting various fruits. Then came layering in acids and oils until the dressing was perfectly balanced.
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That kind of effort made sense in a high-end restaurant, but, at home, undertaking a multistep recipe for a single-use dressing felt sort of ridiculous. As a result, I’d just about stopped making salad at home until a few years ago, when I began working on my second cookbook. While creating the dressing recipes, I’d often end up with multiple jars, and, loathe to waste them, I found myself reaching for them night after night. Eventually, I came to the now-obvious-seeming conclusion that if I have a jar of homemade salad dressing (or three!) ready to go in the fridge, I’m much more likely to eat a salad. The recipes here aren’t just simple, they take any kind of greens you have on hand to the next level.
This delicate sherry-shallot vinaigrette, from Rita Sodi and Jody Williams of the West Village trattoria, Via Carota, is such a stalwart that I now just call it my “House Dressing.” Use it on any salad of tender greens, grain and bean salads, or a niçoise salad.
Via Carota, a West Village restaurant, inspired this sherry-shallot vinaigrette.Rachel Vanni for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Spencer Richards.
The creamy lemon-miso dressing here, inspired by a dressing at Kismet Rotisserie in Los Angeles, is somehow both light and rich. Add the optional poppy seeds for that classic lemon-poppy seed flavor, or leave them out for a much more versatile dressing, great for green salad, grain salad, roasted vegetables, or a composed summer salad of tomatoes, cucumbers and avocado chunks.
This miso-lemon dressing is great on roasted vegetables.Rachel Vanni for The New York Times
And then there’s a sesame-ginger dressing, which I developed with visions of cabbage slaw and chicken salad floating through my head. The ginger’s fire, chile’s heat and acid’s tang go right to the edge without going over. Use this creamy dressing to dress a salad of crunchy romaine and cabbage, just-boiled green beans, or rice or noodle bowls. It also makes a wonderful condiment for chicken, fish and tofu.
Dress a crunchy salad of romaine and cabbage with a creamy sesame-ginger dressing.Rachel Vanni for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Spencer Richards.
While none of these are hard to make, a hand-held immersion blender makes the light work of the dressings, and a sharp knife will make dicing shallots for the vinaigrette immeasurably easier. I like to make them in wide-mouthed jars, then cap and store leftovers in the fridge for up to a week.
Of course, your vinaigrette will congeal in the fridge. Your dressing may separate. And any dressing’s sharpness is sure to flatten. But you can always bring it back to life with a few tweaks.
If your dressing congeals, set the jar in a warm spot to return it to its liquid state. For a separated vinaigrette, ensure the jar is tightly capped and give it a good shake to reunite the oil and vinegar. (If it’s creamy, first, try shaking the jar. If that doesn’t encourage it, let the dressing come to room temperature, add a small chip of ice, give the mixture a quick whiz with an immersion blender.) And for a dressing losing its luster, taste and add a bit more salt, acid, fresh citrus zest or a touch of sweetener.
Take good care of your dressing, and it’ll always be there for you, ready to raise up anything it coats.
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