Homemade salad dressing is simple to make and comes together in minutes. It tastes delicious and helps to avoid preservatives in store-bought dressings.
Making homemade salad dressing is one of the first things Alex and I learned as new cooks, and we were fascinated. Nothing but a little olive oil and vinegar, and we could have dressing for days. Plus, we could avoid random preservatives and additives AND get rid of the centuries-old crusty bottles of ranch in our refrigerator. Sold! Keep reading for our best salad dressing recipe.
See Also: All Homemade Salad Dressings
When I first starting making homemade salad dressing, I made the mistake of lessening the amount of oil. Since then I’ve corrected my ways, because the oil is needed to correctly make the emulsion: that creamy, magical combination of vinegar suspended in oil. I’ve reworked our basic vinaigrette recipe (below) to reflect this, and made a few more changes to make it even simpler. Because salad dressing should be just that: simple. This one requires no mincing of garlic or shallot, just combine olive oil, vinegar, mustard, and a little honey, and whisk away.
Homemade salad dressing is easily customizable to your own tastes. A few dressing tips:
- Use a 3 to 1 ratio of oil versus vinegar
- For the acid, you can substitute balsamic, red wine, apple cider, or sherry vinegar, OR lemon, lime, or orange juice (play with quantities to taste)
- Feel free to add in chopped herbs, minced garlic, minced shallot, fancy salts, you name it
- Store in a glass jar with a tight lid in the refrigerator; bring to room temperature and stir before serving. (This dressing is likely shelf stable but we keep it in the refrigerator just in case.)
On the topic of homemade salad dressing, our latest A Couple Cooks Podcast episode is all about it! Plus, it includes a sweet giveaway of 3 bottles of California Olive Ranch olive oil — see the podcast page for details.
Looking for other sauce and dressing recipes?
- Lemon Tahini Sauce
- Basic Vinaigrette
- Vegan Ranch Dressing
- Honey Mustard Vinaigrette
- Healthy Green Goddess Dressing
- Cilantro Lime Dressing
- Honey Chipotle Dressing
- 10 Homemade Salad Dressing Recipes
- Spicy Chipotle Sauce
Best Homemade Salad Dressing
(157 votes, average: 4.06 out of 5)
- Prep Time: 3 minutes
- Cook Time: 0 minutes
- Total Time: 3 minutes
- Yield: 1 cup 1x
Print Recipe
Pin RecipeDescription
Homemade salad dressing is simple to make and comes together in minutes. It tastes delicious and helps to avoid preservatives in store-bought dressings.
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 plus 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: Side Dish
- Method: Whisked
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: Homemade, easy, simple, salad dressing, oil, vinegar, ratio
Salad Dressing FAQ
To get you started, here are our 25 best salad recipes.
Salad oil is any neutral tasting oil that can be used in salad dressings. Examples include vegetable oil, peanut oil, grapeseed oil, or sunflower oil.
Try our Vegan Ranch Dressing: it’s made with cashews and spices.
Use a 3 to 1 ratio of oil versus vinegar.
Keto is low carb high fat, which corresponds to all of the Salad Dressing Recipes listed here.
See Italian Pasta Salad or Italian Dressing.
Caesar dressing contains mayonnaise, lemon, garlic, olive oil, Parmesan cheese, and anchovies. See Caesar Dressing Recipe.
Yes! The exact timing depends on the recipe itself. Most dressing stays in the refrigerator for 1 week or longer.
All vinaigrette dressing recipes are vegan. See Best Balsamic Vinaigrette, Homemade Italian Dressing, Lemon Vinaigrette, Creamy Avocado Dressing, Greek Salad Dressing, and Easy Honey Mustard Dressing. See also Vegan Ranch Dressing.
Cobb salad has a red wine vinaigrette dressing. See Vegetarian Cobb Salad.
It is not recommended to freeze salad dressing.
Types of Salad Dressing
Why make homemade salad dressing recipes instead of buying them?
It's healthier than store-bought (there’s no preservatives or added salt and sugar), it's quick and easy to make, and it tastes amazing.
Healthy Ranch Dressing
This homemade healthy ranch dressing is seriously tasty and takes just 5 minutes: why buy it again? It features Greek yogurt and a special mix of spices.
Strawberry Salad Dressing
This strawberry salad dressing is lightly sweet, tangy, and totally addictive! It’s a strawberry vinaigrette that adds a nourishing and sweet flair.
Best Balsamic Vinaigrette
This balsamic vinaigrette recipe is super classic, tangy, and easy to make at home, featuring balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and Dijon mustard.
Greek Salad Dressing
This Greek salad dressing is a simple oil and vinegar dressing that comes together in less than 5 minutes: the perfect easy vinaigrette for salads.
Easy Honey Mustard Dressing
This homemade honey mustard dressing is sweet and tangy: and it’s easy to make! All you need is 5 minutes and 4 ingredients!
Caesar Dressing Recipe
This homemade Caesar dressing recipe has a healthy spin using Greek yogurt and Parmesan.
Blue Cheese Dressing
This homemade blue cheese dressing is ultra creamy and uses a bit of yogurt for a healthy spin. It takes 5 minutes and is perfect for salads and as a dip.
Creamy Avocado Dressing
This creamy avocado dressing is bright green, tangy and savory, perfect for drizzling on salads and bowl meals! It takes only a few minutes to blend up.
Best Vinaigrette Dressing
This vinaigrette dressing recipe is a simple oil and vinegar dressing using ingredients in your pantry.
Thousand Island Dressing
This Thousand Island dressing recipe is zesty, simple to whip up, and tastes so good! It's the classic combination of mayo and ketchup.
Homemade Italian Dressing
This zesty homemade Italian dressing recipe is full of flavor and easy to make at home.
Lemon Vinaigrette
This tangy lemon vinaigrette tastes like pure lemon, and uses only 4 ingredients. So easy, so good.
Healthy Green Goddess Dressing
This healthy green goddess dressing takes less than five minutes to make and is great on salads or as a vegetable dip. Perfect for weeknight meals!
Best Tahini Sauce
This tahini sauce is a vegan lemon tahini dressing that’s perfect on anything: a Buddha bowl, a sandwich or veggie burger, or as a dip!
About the Authors
Sonja Overhiser
Cookbook Author and writer
Sonja Overhiser is author of Pretty Simple Cooking, named one of the best healthy cookbooks of 2018. She’s host of the food podcast Small Bites and founder of the food blog A Couple Cooks. Featured from the TODAY Show to Bon Appetit, Sonja seeks to inspire adventurous eating to make the world a better place one bite at a time.
Alex Overhiser
Cookbook Author and photographer
Alex Overhiser is an acclaimed food photographer and author based in Indianapolis. He’s host of the food podcast Small Bites and founder of the recipe website A Couple Cooks. Featured from the TODAY Show to Bon Appetit, Alex is author of Pretty Simple Cooking, named one of the best vegetarian cookbooks by Epicurious.
13 Comments
Matt
April 27, 2016 at 10:29 amSo easy, I’ve got to do this!
Allyson
April 27, 2016 at 11:02 amMy default is two parts oil, one part wine vinegar (red wine and champaign are tied for frequency), and a good knob of stoneground mustard. Shake it and season it with salt and pepper and it goes with most things. Homemade dressing really is a game changer. It’s so much tastier and takes almost no time, but people who don’t cook are always beyond impressed with homemade salad dressing.
Aimee
April 27, 2016 at 1:35 pmThis post comes at the perfect time! I’m sitting here, eating a salad tossed with my first attempt at a homemade salad dressing. Definitely thinking mine could use some tweaks, so it’s nice to have this as a guideline for the next time I attempt to make dressing again! The honey mustard combination sounds dreamy.
Kari
April 27, 2016 at 4:32 pmHomemade dressing is so much better than all of the mystery ingredients that come in the storebought kind!
Kari
http://www.sweetteasweetie.com
Kristi Rimkus
April 30, 2016 at 12:04 pmI love a basic dressing that works for almost any kind of salad and can even double as a marinade for vegetables and meats. The best part is we skip all the unnecessary additives and control the fat and sugar too!
Elizabeth
May 1, 2016 at 4:07 pmHow timely, I’m in charge of salad for tonight’s dinner plans. Thanks for the recipes. ?
Agness of Run Agness Run
October 8, 2017 at 6:11 amThis is probably one of the best salad dressing I’ve ever tried! Is it possible to use maple syrup instead of honey?
Lindsey
February 15, 2018 at 9:38 amI often hear cooks say, “use a good quality olive oil.” I need brands or what things to look for. And do you use olive oil or extra virgin olive oil? I’ve tried to make my own but they do not turn out good and I have a feeling it is because of the olive oil I use (usually extra virgin – Bertolli).
Sonja
February 15, 2018 at 11:13 pmGood question! We always use extra virgin olive oil. In terms of brand, we love California Olive Ranch, very high-quality made in the US with a lovely flavor. You get what you pay for typically, so try something in the mid-range of prices and then gradually taste different bottles to see which flavors you prefer!
Bunny Muller
October 30, 2018 at 3:34 pmWould like to make my own salad dressings
Terri
January 28, 2019 at 11:00 amHow do you think it would work to sub honey mustard or stone ground for the Dijon?
Sonja
January 28, 2019 at 11:01 amStone ground mustard would work!
Samaya Marie
April 14, 2019 at 9:14 pmAmazing! Tastes great!