My Favorite Homemade Salad Dressing
And why an immersion blender is the tool I rely on for making creamy vegan dressings in my home kitchen
My personal favorite salad dressing is a very thick Balsamic served at Delfiore Pizza & Food Co. in my hometown of Patchogue, New York. I could never quite figure out how they did it, and my mother insisted eggs must have been involved to get it quite so viscous, but I was not convinced. This dressing had to be possible with just olive oil, vinegar, and some additional flavorings. It took me until the desperate homesickness of the pandemic to do it on a whim, but it worked — because I used my immersion blender.
Previously, I mostly used the stick blender for soups, my ketchup recipe, other purees, or just to make cashew cream with herbs blended in. In recent months, though, I’ve turned to it in order to make tahini-based dressings that are a pain to whisk because of how thick the sesame seed paste is, and it has changed my life. Because of the powerful emulsification that happens, these dressings will stay put together in the fridge for days, with no re-shaking or whisking necessary. And it’s easy to measure out if your immersion blender, like my Cuisinart, comes with its own perfectly sized measuring cup. (This isn’t an ad — it’s just super useful for this purpose!)
