DYI: Salad Dressing

I'm always amazed walking down the salad dressing isle of a grocery store and seeing the hundreds of bottles lined in colorful rows. The variety of dressings we have to choose from is somewhat shocking... what's even more shocking is what is in them ... I can't pronounce half of the ingredients, and then of course there's the little high fructose corn syrup or sugar that seem to sneak into every bottle.

Have no fear. Salad dressings are easy, fun, and super affordable to make.
I started making all of my salad dressings this year, and I'm sure I have saved tons of money by doing so. I love knowing that when I'm craving a bit hearty salad I can dress it up with no problem.

My DYI dressing over spinach, apples, avocado, and sesame seeds! 

The easy "go to" of DYI salad dressings is, naturally, Balsamic Vinegar and Olive Oil with a dash of salt and pepper. But the combinations are limitless!

Toby Hatchett from Seacoast Online wrote a great article if you're new to making your own dressings. His article includes basic recipes for all types of salad dressings (not-veg friendly, but substitutions are basic). He also reminds us most salad dressings are 2 parts oil per 1 part vinegar.

Other resources are available via the world wide web and your book shelves! I don't know a single vegan cookbook that doesn't have a dressing recipe in it. One of my personal favorites is the Vegetarian Times website and magazine. In every issue they have divine salads paired with simple and elegant dressings. Once you've played around with recipes its easy and fun to start creating your own concoctions.

My go to salad dressing is (sorry I've never once measured the ingredients, I always end up just throwing them together in a food processor! but I encourage you to do the same!):
-Tahini
-Olive Oil
-Apple Cider Vinagar
-Lemon Juice
-dash of salt
-Medjool Dates (about 2 chopped)
-and a dash of water (so it's not a dip, but more of a dressing)

I almost always use tahini as my base for dressing because I love the stuff. Other fun salad dressing ingredients are:
-grapefruit juice
-raspberries
-orange juice
-lime juice
-sesame oil
-peanut oil
-miso
-veganaise
-basil
-dill
-mustard
-nutritional yeast
-sesame seeds

Like I said earlier the combinations are endless!
So load up the processor or blender the next time you've got a bowl full of greens waiting and experiment!