10 Easy Homemade Salad Dressing Recipes — The Olive Oil I Poured for Paul

I baked at 6 AM because the house was too quiet and the oven is the surest way I know to make a house feel inhabited. The oven generates heat, smell, the small ticks of metal expanding, the predictable rise of dough on the counter, the timer I can hear from three rooms away. The oven is, in some real sense, my roommate. I have not told this to my children. They would gently suggest something. The oven and I prefer no suggestions. Erik came over Sunday. He chopped wood for me without being asked — the pile by the back door was getting low, and Erik had noticed, and Erik had brought his ax, and Erik had spent forty-five minutes splitting and stacking and not making a single comment about how the wood needed to be done. He drank coffee. He left. The whole visit was forty-five minutes. It was perfect. Erik is a perfect brother in the specific way of Scandinavian brothers — silent, useful, present. Mamma called Tuesday. Her voice was small but her mind was sharp. She wanted to talk about Pappa, of all people. About the time he fixed her bicycle in 1962. About how he always said "there" when he had finished a job, the same way every time, the small declarative finality. She had not thought of this in years, she said. The memory came to her in the kitchen, while she was peeling an apple. I listened. I did not interrupt. The memory was unprovoked and total. The memory is everything. I cooked Tomato basil salad this week. Garden tomatoes, finally, after the long wait. Sliced thick, salted, layered with basil and mozzarella, drizzled with olive oil and balsamic. The reward for waiting. The Damiano Center on Thursday: wild rice soup, fifty gallons. Gerald helped me ladle. He told me about a regular who got into a sober house this week — a man named Curtis, who has been coming for soup for eight years and who has been sober for forty-three days now. The soup did not get him sober. The soup was there when he was hungry. The soup is the door, again. The door is the chance. I read one of Paul's books in the evening. The Edmund Fitzgerald chapter. I have read it forty times now. The fortieth time is no less affecting than the first. The transmission still gives me a chill: "We are holding our own." Captain McSorley's last known words. The chapter ends with the wreck on the bottom of Lake Superior, and the men still inside, and the lake refusing to give up its dead. Paul read this chapter to me in 1989, on a winter evening, in the living room. I did not know then that he was reading me his own future. It is enough. Paul is not here. Mamma is not here. Pappa is not here. Erik is not here. They are all here in the kitchen, in the smell, in the taste, in the wooden spoon and the bread pans and the marble slab. The dead are not where the body went. The dead are in the kitchen. I have been thinking about the kitchen as a kind of slow-moving river. The river has carried things for a hundred and fifty years now — Mormor's recipes from Uppsala, brought across the Atlantic in steerage in the 1880s; Mamma's adaptations of those recipes for the cold of Minnesota; my own modifications, picked up over fifty years; the small experiments my granddaughters bring home from cooking shows they watch on phones. The river keeps moving. I am one bend in it. There will be others. It is enough.

The tomato basil salad I made this week asked almost nothing of me — only patience, and the willingness to wait for the garden to be ready. But a good dressing is what carries a simple salad from ordinary to something you remember, and I have learned over fifty years that the ones you make yourself are always better than the ones you buy. These ten dressings are the kind Erik would not comment on, which is the highest praise I know.

10 Easy Homemade Salad Dressing Recipes

Prep Time: 5 min each | Cook Time: 0 min | Total Time: 5 min | Servings: 4–6 per dressing

Ingredients

• Classic Balsamic Vinaigrette: 3 tbsp balsamic vinegar, 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil, 1 tsp Dijon mustard, 1 clove garlic (minced), salt and pepper to taste
• Lemon Herb: 3 tbsp fresh lemon juice, 1/2 cup olive oil, 1 tsp honey, 1 tbsp fresh parsley (chopped), 1 tsp fresh thyme, salt and pepper to taste
• Creamy Garlic: 1/4 cup mayonnaise, 2 tbsp white wine vinegar, 2 cloves garlic (minced), 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp water, salt and pepper to taste
• Honey Mustard: 2 tbsp Dijon mustard, 2 tbsp honey, 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar, 1/4 cup olive oil, salt and pepper to taste
• Red Wine Vinaigrette: 3 tbsp red wine vinegar, 1/2 cup olive oil, 1/2 tsp dried oregano, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, salt and pepper to taste
• Caesar-Style: 2 tbsp lemon juice, 1 clove garlic (minced), 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce, 1/4 cup olive oil, 2 tbsp grated Parmesan, salt and pepper to taste
• Tahini: 3 tbsp tahini, 2 tbsp lemon juice, 1 clove garlic (minced), 2 tbsp warm water, 1 tbsp olive oil, salt to taste
• Apple Cider: 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar, 1/2 cup olive oil, 1 tsp maple syrup, 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard, salt and pepper to taste
• Raspberry Vinaigrette: 3 tbsp raspberry vinegar, 1/3 cup olive oil, 1 tsp honey, 1/2 tsp shallot (minced), salt and pepper to taste
• Simple Olive Oil & Herb: 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil, 2 tbsp white wine vinegar, 1 tbsp fresh basil (chopped), 1 tbsp fresh chives, salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Combine. For vinaigrette-style dressings, add all ingredients to a small jar or bowl. Whisk or shake vigorously until fully emulsified, about 30 seconds.
2. Blend creamy dressings. For the Creamy Garlic and Caesar-Style dressings, whisk together the base ingredients first, then slowly drizzle in the olive oil while whisking to achieve a smooth, cohesive texture.
3. Thin as needed. For the Tahini dressing, add warm water one teaspoon at a time until the dressing reaches a pourable consistency — tahini thickens quickly and benefits from gentle loosening.
4. Taste and adjust. Sample each dressing before serving and adjust salt, acid, or sweetness to suit your palate. A tomato basil salad calls for a light hand with vinegar — the tomatoes carry their own brightness.
5. Dress at the table. For a tomato basil salad with mozzarella, drizzle the Simple Olive Oil & Herb or Classic Balsamic Vinaigrette over thick-sliced tomatoes, torn basil, and fresh mozzarella just before serving. Let it rest five minutes so the salt draws out the tomato juices.
6. Store. All dressings keep in a sealed jar in the refrigerator for up to one week. Shake or whisk again before each use, as they will separate on standing.

Nutrition (per serving, Classic Balsamic Vinaigrette)

Calories: 120 | Protein: 0g | Fat: 13g | Carbs: 2g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 75mg