Want to make salad dressing at home? This vinaigrette dressing recipe shows you how to make an oil and vinegar dressing using ingredients in your pantry.
When it comes to eating “off the grid,” one of the easiest things you can do is throw out those bottles of purchased salad dressing in favor of the homemade variety. Not only does it taste exponentially better and avoids suspicious ingredients, but you can also clear out your refrigerator of all those half-empty bottles of unknown origin (just what year did I buy this, anyway?). Learning how to make a vinaigrette recipe isn’t as tricky as you’d think. Keep reading for our best vinaigrette dressing.
See Also: All Homemade Salad Dressings
How to make vinaigrette
To make an emulsion for this vinaigrette salad dressing, you simply whisk the ingredients by hand. In order to get the oil and vinegar to incorporate well, we use a medium-sized bowl to allow for enough movement of the whisk. (Trust us, we’ve done it in small bowls before and it’s almost impossible to get the oil and vinegar to meld.) The other tip for reaching an emulsion is adding the olive oil little by little. We typically add it tablespoon by tablespoon and whisk in between until the oil fully incorporates.
Interestingly, the Dijon mustard in this recipe also helps to form and lock in the emulsion. We’ve used this technique in our other vinaigrette recipes, like our Balsamic Vinaigrette and Italian Dressing.
Ways to switch up your vinaigrette dressing
This oil and vinegar dressing recipe is a good starting point for a basic homemade vinaigrette, so feel free to tweak it as you see fit. For the acid, try different vinegars like balsamic or apple cider vinegar, or use citrus juices like lemon, lime, and orange. Add a little minced garlic or shallot (just be careful, because a little goes a long way). In the summer, chop some fresh herbs and add them to the mix—oregano, thyme, or chives are particularly good. Extra virgin olive oil is a particularly good base oil, and we generally stick with olive oil for most of our vinaigrettes. We like olive oil for its light flavor and versatility. Plus, it’s fairly inexpensive compared to other oils on the market.
Ways to use vinaigrette dressing
Besides tasting delicious on salads, homemade vinaigrette dressing can be used to marinate fish or tofu, can be drizzled on sandwiches for a pop of flavor, can be tossed with potatoes to make a tangy potato salad, and more. The combination of oil and vinegar pairs well with a variety of foods and can easily jazz up any recipe. You can even use vinaigrettes as dipping sauces instead of ketchup and mustard. Baked potato wedges taste especially good with a honey mustard vinaigrette, but really anything is possible!
How to store vinaigrette dressing
We recommend storing leftover vinaigrette in the refrigerator in a jar or container with a lid. Refrigerating usually makes the dressing go solid. If this happen to your homemade vinaigrette dressing, just run it under warm water for a minute and stir it up prior to using. Vinaigrette recipes made with fresh herbs are best used right away, but otherwise they’ll stay good for up to two weeks.
Looking for more homemade salad dressing recipes?
Outside of this homemade vinaigrette recipe, here are a few of our favorite homemade salad dressing recipes:
- Homemade Ranch Dressing
- Caesar Dressing Recipe
- Best Balsamic Vinaigrette
- Blue Cheese Dressing
- Greek Salad Dressing
- Honey Mustard Vinaigrette
- Healthy Green Goddess Dressing
- Green Chile Vinaigrette
- Lemon Tahini Sauce
- 10 Homemade Salad Dressing Recipes
Looking for easy salad recipes?
- Massaged Kale Salad with Pomegranate and Apple
- California Salad with Avocado Oil Vinaigrette
- Thai Salad with Peanut Sauce Dressing
- Smoky Ranch Wedge Salad with Potato Chips
- Superfood Salad
This recipe is…
This vinaigrette dressing recipe is vegetarian, gluten-free, vegan (using maple syrup), dairy-free, and plant-based.
PrintBest Vinaigrette Dressing
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 0 minutes
- Total Time: 5 minutes
- Yield: 1 cup 1x
Description
Want to make salad dressing at home? This vinaigrette dressing recipe shows you how to make an oil and vinegar dressing using ingredients in your pantry.
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
- 2 teaspoons honey or maple syrup
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- ⅛ teaspoon black pepper
- ½ cup + 1 tablespoon olive oil
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, whisk all ingredients except olive oil. Then slowly whisk in the olive oil tablespoon by tablespoon until the dressing thickens and an emulsion forms. Taste and adjust quantities as desired.
- Store in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks; bring to room temperature and stir before serving.
- Category: Dressing
- Method: Mixed
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 2 TBSP
Keywords: how to make vinaigrette, homemade salad dressing, vinaigrette dressing, oil and vinegar dressing, vinaigrette salad dressing, vinaigrette recipe, vinegar salad dressing, how to make vinaigrette
Homemade vinaigrette is the best! I love your canning jar tip!
Thank you for this! I have made a lot of homemade dressings that I love, and I think this will really help me kick the store-bought habit for good, especially with ingredients I pretty much always have on hand. Sur La Table also has some really nice and inexpensive glass bottles for things like salad dressing, just FYI.
Thanks for the recommendation – we’ll have to check it out! :)
I love shaking my vinaigrette in a jar too. It’s so much easier! And you can never have too many basic vinaigrette recipes! Thanks for this one!
Thanks for this basic recipe and the great hint about the canning jar. Funny — I make homemade mayonnaise (in the pint jars so it’s already in its storage container), but didn’t think of making my vinaigrette in a similar (albeit smaller) container!
Wow! I’ve have been a Good Seasons dressing user because that’s what I grew up with and it was always just OK. But this dressing has my husband and me wanting salads every day instead of a couple days a week! I used 1/3 cup of vinegar and it was just right!
Thanks for posting this recipe!
Glad to hear it! 1/3 cup sounds like a good ratio. The original recipe we started with used 1/4 cup vinegar to 1 cup olive oil, which to me was like drinking olive oil!
This is ace! Easy and tasty. Perfect combo.
I love homemade dressings. Lately I have simply been tossing my greens with a drizzle of olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. It is light and delicious. I also love to use the “shake it if you got it” method for making dressings. So simple.
Thanks for the recipe! I hate storebought salad dressings, and always make my own dressings. I use the same ratio of oil and vinegar, and I really like champagne vinegar. It is light and crisp.
Love basic vinaigrettes! They can be so flavorful and refreshing. Now that I’ve starting making my own, it’s really hard to buy store bought dressings.
I always make fresh vinegarette. When you walk down the salad dressing aisle in the grocery and see all those bottles standing sentry, all I can think of is how cloying and full of preservatives, and expensive they are. Tip: That little bit of mustard goody left in the jar makes a great little dressing shake-up container. And you don’t waste the mustard. Also, I used to pour the dressing on top of the individual salads when setting the table, but a recent cookbook read says to toss the entire salad with the dressing (with your hands)and then serve. I use salad tongs to toss it but I’ve found that less dressing is needed and every piece of the salad has enough of it to add flavor without leaving a wasted puddle in the bottom of the salad dish.