How to season vinaigrette: interesting ideas, features and recommendations

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

Sauce plays a key role in creating the flavor of a dish. A salad of the highest quality products will be hopelessly spoiled by an unsuccessful dressing.

Usually salads and vinaigrettes are seasoned with butter, sour cream, mayonnaise and lemon juice. For vinaigrette, vegetable oil is traditionally chosen. But is it really the only tasty option?

Let's get acquainted with the vinaigrette

Before you figure out how to fill the vinaigrette instead of butter, it would be nice to figure out what kind of dish it is and why mayonnaise is rarely used for it.

Vinaigret is a salad of French origin that was originally dressed with a sauce called vinaigrette, which was a simple mixture of vinegar and olive oil.

Theoretically, you can fill the vinaigrette with mayonnaise, and sour cream, and unsweetened yogurt. If the vinaigrette recipe includes mushrooms and beans, it is even recommended to replace the oil with mayonnaise to emphasize the taste. However, the “not in oil” vinaigrette, even if it is tasty, is already a slightly different dish. But below we will consider such options.

What ingredients to use for butter dressings

What kind of oil to fill the vinaigrette,if you don't like olive? It just so happened that in Russia, among vegetable oils, sunflower oil is the most common. For salads, unrefined is often taken. If a vinaigrette is being prepared, then the oil is mixed with mustard or grated horseradish, vinegar and a little sugar. Sometimes only oil is used without any additives.

You need to focus on the composition of the salad and taste preferences. For example, add less vinegar if there are a lot of pickled cucumbers in the dish. Or replace it with lemon or lime juice if you prefer.

The presence of sauerkraut and pickled cucumbers in the salad eliminates the need to add s alt to the dressing.

If you do not want to use either lemon or vinegar, mix vegetable oil in a 3:1 ratio with cucumber pickle. Another substitute option is white wine.

When choosing the best dressing for vinaigrette, experiment, but do not forget about the sense of proportion and compatibility of ingredients. If you chose unrefined oil, then let the vinegar be with a less pronounced odor. If you prefer balsamic vinegar, then take refined oil.

Classic dressing

So, how to fill the vinaigrette, if vegetable oil sauce is quite suitable for you, and you don’t want serious experiments? Let's pick the ingredients:

1. Oil. Oil with a smell is recommended - olive or unrefined sunflower. But you can also use the usual non-smelling option.
2. Vinegar. You can also take the usual, but it is better to prefer grape or apple. Alternative option - lemon or limejuice.
3. Mustard. Used for stabilization. The component is optional, but it is interesting that even people who do not like mustard willingly eat it as part of a vinaigrette. Can be replaced with hard-boiled egg yolk, grated horseradish, chopped hot pepper.
4. At will and for the brightness of the taste, the sauce is complemented with herbs and spices. Marjoram, thyme, tarragon, basil, rosemary are optimal.

We take 1 part of vinegar for 3 parts of oil. S alt (preferably coarse) and pepper are added to taste in vinegar, then mixed with oil. Whisk the ingredients or place in a closed container and shake vigorously several times. If mustard is added, oil and vinegar are mixed first.

The principle of making the sauce is almost always the same, only the ingredients change.

Spice the vinaigrette just before serving.

Interesting additions to the classic dressing

Since an oil and vinegar based sauce is the most suitable option, let's find out how delicious to season the vinaigrette without deviating much from the classic recipe.

The universal ingredient is garlic. It is enough to grind one slice and add it to a regular sauce to make the taste much richer.

Or enrich the oil-vinegar mixture with vegetables: baked and pureed pepperoni or mashed tomato. By the same principle, you can add olives and capers.

Unexpected component - honey. Literally 1 teaspoon for 3 tbsp. spoons of butter.

You can also finely chop the onion,mix with chopped green onions, parsley, dill and add the resulting mass to the sauce.

Egg and broth dressing

Prepare 1 raw egg yolk, 2 tbsp. spoons of vegetable broth, 2 tbsp. tablespoons of oil. You will also need 3% vinegar, but its amount is selected to taste. Neutral option - 1 teaspoon.

Bouillon, egg yolk and butter mix in a small saucepan and place over low heat. Stirring constantly, heat until the mixture thickens. Remove from stove and add vinegar. Refrigerate.

Egg and caper dressing

Grate 2 hard-boiled egg yolks. Add half a spoon of dry mustard, 2 teaspoons of finely chopped onions, dill and capers. S alt, pepper, pour half a cup of 3% vinegar and ¾ cup of vegetable oil.

Mix all ingredients well and beat.

Dressing with different types of oil and vinegar

Take 3 tbsp. tablespoons of olive and refined sunflower oils. Add 1 tbsp. a spoonful of wine (red or white) and berry (cherry or raspberry) vinegar. Add a pinch each of s alt and black pepper.

Mix the ingredients, place in a jar and shake well.

The sauce is suitable not only for vinaigrette, but also for other vegetable salads.

When mayonnaise is appropriate in vinaigrette

How to season vinaigrette for people who prefer mayonnaise and sour cream in salads? Well, let the vinaigrette be traditionally dressed with oil, butexperiments have not been cancelled. And the recipe for the salad itself does not always correspond to the canons.

The most common ingredients include beets, potatoes, sauerkraut, pickles and onions. But there are many ways to make a salad more satisfying. For example, add meat and boiled eggs to the specified set of components. And such a salad can be seasoned with mayonnaise.

Also, this sauce is indispensable if beans and s alted mushrooms are added to the vinaigrette. True, in this case, it is better to add mustard and lemon juice to mayonnaise to emphasize the taste of the salad.

Can I season vinaigrette with sour cream

As in the case of mayonnaise, it is more appropriate to ask, not how to season the vinaigrette, but what to cook it with.

Make a vinaigrette with boiled beets, fresh cucumbers, canned green peas, corn, and red chili peppers. Get a "Mexican vinaigrette". Mix sour cream with herbs and season the resulting dish.

The famous film director Eldar Ryazanov came up with his own recipe, in which he mixed mayonnaise and sour cream. Once he did not like the vinaigrette, which was served at the hotel. Then the artist mixed sour cream, lemon juice, mayonnaise, mustard, sugar and pepper. I added cheese, walnuts and apples to the salad. The resulting dish cannot be called a classic vinaigrette, but Eldar Aleksandrovich was very pleased.

Can I season vinaigrette with yogurt

And again the answer is yes. Add to 150ml yogurt 1 tbsp. a spoonful of apple cider vinegar, 1 minced garlic clove, s alt, pepper. Whisk everything thoroughly.

The sauce goes well with the classic vinaigrette recipe. But since we are thinking about how to season the vinaigrette to get a non-standard taste, why not go even further? For example, there is a vinaigrette recipe that uses yogurt as a sauce. But the usual set of products has changed.

Cook the beets, parsnips and carrots. Cut into cubes. Arrange on a platter lined with lettuce leaves. Top with yogurt dressing and sprinkle with walnuts.

Diet dressings

Vinaigrette can be used as a diet dish. But the variations in low-calorie salad recipes are limited. Only beets, potatoes, carrots, boiled beans, onions and sauerkraut. It is even recommended to exclude potatoes or use in small quantities. But green peas are allowed.

Vegetables are boiled and finely chopped. The salad is dressed with olive oil, low-fat kefir, low-fat cottage cheese or natural yogurt.

When in doubt

If there are people at the table with such different taste preferences that you have no idea how you can season the vinaigrette to please all eaters, then just give the guests a choice.

Put several types of sauces on the table, not forgetting the usual mayonnaise and vegetable oil without additives. Dressing the salad right on their plate, each guest will be able not only to choose the sauce according totaste, but also try several variations of the same dish.

What else you need to know about vinaigrette dressings

The taste of vinaigrette can be improved by adding sugar and milk to it - literally one spoon each. First, add sugar and mix the salad well so that the crystals dissolve in the vegetable juice. This manipulation will make the vegetables more juicy, so don't overdo it.

Then add milk. Mix everything again and put the dish in the refrigerator. After a while, the ingredients will soak, and the taste of the salad will become richer.

If you chose the sauce with the addition of boiled egg yolk, then it is not necessary to throw away the protein. Finely chop it and add to the prepared dressing.

The amount of dressing should be sufficient so that the vegetables are well soaked. But if the sauce collects at the bottom of the salad bowl, it means that it has been added more than necessary.

Vinaigrette during feasts leaves quickly and in large quantities, but still you should not cook it too much. If stored in the refrigerator, it will quickly lose its flavor. In addition, it is not recommended to store salads seasoned with oil-based sauces for a long time. If olive oil is used, it thickens quickly in the refrigerator.

If you don't want all the ingredients to be stained with beetroot juice, then use a little trick. After slicing the beet, pour it with vegetable oil and only then mix it with the rest of the vegetables. Then each component will retain its color, and the salad will turn out to be multi-colored.

Well,now you know how to season the vinaigrette, except for oil, and how to replace the unloved components of sauces. Bon appetit and successful culinary experiments!