It is really easy to make a quick homemade salad dressing, and it tastes so much better than most of the bottled stuff out there. This version, with fresh lemon juice, makes greens and vegetables sing. If you are taking the time to prepare a salad, you want it to taste fabulous!
Here’s the basic way my family does it: First, get yourself one of those cruets from the grocery store – they still sell them! Or find the one from 1978 in the back of your pantry. It still works. If you don’t have one, just use any clean empty jar. Next, grab some olive oil (I like organic California olive oil), a lemon, salt and pepper. That’s all you need.
Squeeze your lemon first and see how much juice you get. This one was generous! You want it to come up to the V line on the cruet, or be about half of the final amount of salad dressing you want. If your lemon didn’t give much juice, you can add a little balsamic vinegar to it. The lemon-balsamic combo is delicious.
Add some salt and pepper, and just a little more olive oil than you have lemon juice. It will look like this – see, the olive oil and lemon juice are almost equal. Pop on the lid and shake.
There you go! That was so easy, right?
Yours probably won’t be neon yellow, that was from my camera. But your dressing will be luscious, fresh and delicious. Its not only great on salad greens, but also on grilled vegetables and even grilled chicken.
From here you can add anything you like, I sometimes add some garlic, oregano, thyme or basil. This dressing keeps for at least a week in the fridge, but we usually use it up before that. Then I make some more. (It will get solid in the refrigerator, so take it out about 30 minutes before you need it, or keep it in the pantry if you will use it up quickly.)
Enjoy!!
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