Salad Dressing Recipe

As an accompaniment to the previous post about parsley, here is a salad dressing recipe I often make. Salad dressing is super easy to make at home, tastes better than store bought, and saves on plastic and glass bottles (I've never found a good reuse for those bottles).

I don't typically measure when I cook, I mostly make it up as I go along and taste. These measurements are very approximate. So if this doesn't look right to you, be sure to adjust it for your tastes! Please bear with my ingredients commentary:

• 1/2 cup rice vinegar (rice vinegar has a mild and delicate flavor)
• (or try real apple cider vinegar, like Bragg. It's an acquired taste, so you may want to go easy with this. Please don't buy the Heinz apple cider vinegar in a jug - it doesn't taste as good)
• 1/3 cup good olive oil
• 1 clove finely minced garlic
• 2 tbs finely chopped fresh parsley
• 2 tbs finely chopped green onion
  
• 1/4 cup tamari sauce (like soy sauce, but tastes better)
• a few squirts of lemon juice (fresh lemon tastes better, if you have it handy)
  
• 6 tablespoons of tahini (sesame paste, found near the peanut butter or in the natural foods aisle)
• a few pinches of sugar (don't use too much - it's just to enhance and balance the flavors)
  

Mix the rice vinegar (pictured is apple cider vinegar) and olive oil first, add the tamari sauce and tahini. Add a *tiny* bit of water if it is too pasty. Mix in the lemon juice. Add the garlic, parsley, and onion.

Then add a pinch of sugar and mix. If you add more sugar, taste after each pinch to make sure it isn't too sweet.

Since this is "real" salad dressing, the oil will separate. So leave it out on the counter to warm up and mix before you serve (or if you are in a real hurry, warm up in the microwave for a few seconds before mixing).


Another parsley note: Be sure to remove the stems and chop the parsley. See photos:

Removing the stems with handy kitchen shears









Chopping parsley with handy kitchen shears