Easy-Peasy Salad Dressing
A summery, orange dressing that even the beginner can shake up.
Whisk together this salad dressing in minutes to add a sweet, lightly-flavoured and healthy dressing to your lettuce leaves.
Do you think that making your own salad dressing would be too hard? A job that requires endless beating and preparation, a job better left to French chefs and the supermarket? Fear not! In a few simple steps, and using only six store-cupboard ingredients, you can whisk together a dressing to grace your salad leaves and impress your fellow diners.
Ingredients
1 large orange Oil (olive oil works well, but any salad oil, such as grape or walnut, could be used) Red wine vinegar Clear honey Black pepper Mustard powder
Optional: dried herbs (basil, rosemary or mint will both give a pleasant flavour), or cumin seeds.
Method
1) Slice the orange in half and squeeze the juice into a jug.
Hint: Roll the orange firmly on your work surface before cutting, and it will give more juice.
2) Pour in approximately the same amount of oil. Mix briskly with a fork.
3) Add a splash of red wine vinegar and a teaspoon of honey. Whisk again.
4) Grind in as much black pepper as you like, and add a pinch (or more!) of mustard powder. Sprinkle over a pinch of dried herbs or cumin seeds, if liked.
5) Pour into an empty (clean!) jar or a plastic bottle, screw the lid on tight, and shake until the dressing turns cloudy. If you have no jar or bottle handy, then you can whisk the dressing with a fork.
6) Spoon the dressing over your salad and toss lightly to coat the leaves. You can keep the rest for next time, stored in the fridge in a screw top jar or a bottle in the fridge. It will separate over time, so shake before each use.
What to put with it:
You can use this orange salad dressing on just a handful of salad leaves, but if you want something more substantial you could tried tossing cooked new potatoes together with a chopped, hard-boiled egg, a few slices of tomato, and a chopped sweet pepper.
Alternatively you could roast your pepper with the tomato and a handful of mushrooms for twenty minutes with a splash of olive oil, and then toss these with the salad leaves. Mix the juices from your vegetables with the orange dressing to create a sublime sweet-vegetable dressing.
If you don't want salad tonight, you can even stir a tablespoon of this salad dressing into freshly-cooked green vegetables to add a special flavour to your dinner. Brocolli and runner beans work especially well, but any vegetables can be used.
