Dijon Mustard Dressing

Here’s a must-make homemade vinaigrette for salads: Dijon mustard dressing! It’s tangy and perfectly balanced⁠—and it takes just 5 minutes to make.

This Dijon mustard dressing is as easy as they come. Really! There’s no lemon juice squeezing or garlic mincing required. Nope, just a few ingredients that are probably already in your pantry. The flavor of this vinaigrette? Well, it’s our new favorite: it’s perfectly balanced, tangy and savory. And it takes only 5 minutes to put together this easy homemade salad dressing. It will become your new go-to!

What’s in this Dijon mustard dressing?

One of the keys to eating healthy in the long term: making your own salad dressing! Before Alex and I started cooking a lot, we had a collection of salad dressings in our refrigerator that were from the dark ages. Seriously, who knows when some of these dressing bottles came to be! Since that time, we’ve stopped buying dressing altogether and started making it. It’s easy to do and you know exactly what’s in it: no preservatives or sky high sodium.

What are the ingredients in this Dijon mustard? We hope you already have them in your pantry so you can whip this up immediately. Here’s what you’ll need:

• Dijon mustard
• White wine vinegar (yep, saved you a trip to the store for a lemon!)
• Maple syrup to balance the flavor
• Olive oil
• Salt

The key to making the perfect emulsion

An emulsion is when a vinaigrette dressing becomes creamy and all one texture. When you’re using olive oil and vinegar, you may notice that they can tend to separate. If you whisk up your emulsion correctly, it will stay creamy as it sits. (Often when storing in the refrigerator, it will separate: so you can re-whisk it prior to serving.)

Here’s what to do to make an emulsion that stays creamy:

• Use a medium sized bowl. Believe it or not, we’ve had issues using too small of a bowl when whisking a dressing. You need enough room that the whisk can move vigorously back and forth.
• Whisk the olive oil in 1 tablespoon at a time. The gradual adding of olive oil is what allows the oil to seamlessly integrate. You can also drizzle it in gradually, but we find it easier to add 1 tablespoon and then whisk, then add another and whisk again.

10 ways to serve this Dijon mustard dressing

This Dijon mustard dressing is so quick to make, it’s our new go-to! Of course, we have lots of homemade healthy salad dressings that we love. But this one might be the simplest! Another bonus: it’s a vegan salad dressing, too. Here are a few salads where it would work well or easily replace the dressing listed in the recipe:

1. Asparagus Salad Filled with sauteed asparagus, radishes, feta cheese, and lemon, this salad is made perfect with the Dijon mustard dressing.
2. Best Tossed Salad This tossed salad is a versatile salad that works with any meal!
3. Fennel Orange Salad The tang of this Dijon vinaigrette would work in place of the Citrus Vinaigrette here!
4. Easy Arugula Salad This simple arugula salad would be fantastic with this easy dressing.
5. Classic Spinach Salad Trade Dijon dressing for balsamic vinaigrette here: it would be just as good!
6. Beet Salad Same as with the apple salad, the Dijon dressing works with beets too!
7. Nicoise Salad Shortcut the dressing in this main dish salad!
8. California Salad This green salad would be just as good with Dijon instead of avocado oil dressing!
9. Blackberry Salad Dijon dressing works with beets, too!
10. Summer Vegetable Salad Ditch the sesame ranch dressing here for this vegan salad dressing!

This Dijon mustard dressing recipe is…

Vegetarian, vegan, plant-based, dairy-free, and gluten-free.

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