The most versatile of all salad dressings, the vinaigrette serves as a jumping-off point for a seemingly endless variety of recipes.
Once you’ve mastered the basic vinaigrette recipe, you can have fun tailoring it – through substitutions for the vinegar and oil, as well as through adding any number of ingredients – to fit your salad or sauce requirements.
Julia Child, the masterful chef who brought French cuisine to mainstream kitchens throughout the world, once said that she used “the proportions of a very dry martini, since you can always add more vinegar or lemon but you can't take it out.”
Vinaigrette combines vinegar or lemon juice with vegetable oil or olive oil in a 1:3 ratio. Other ingredients, such as herbs and spices, are mixed in for additional flavor.
Perhaps because it is basically such a simply essential recipe, vinaigrette will only be as good as the ingredients that you put into it. Superior oil and vinegar coupled with the freshest of add-ins will result in the most flavorful vinaigrette. Again quoting Julia Child, “Its beauty lies solely in the quality of your ingredients.”
The word vinaigrette means “cute little vinegar” in French. It is the most common salad dressing, and serves as the base of many sauces. It also makes a delicious marinade for chicken, fish, and vegetables. Although in its typical proportions it is normally too delicate to team up with beef, vinaigrette will work well with steaks if modified to include more robust flavors.
For a tasty sauce to accompany meat or poultry, whisk basic vinaigrette into a small amount of melted butter. Gently heat, stirring constantly. Flavor it with wine, herbs, and spices that complement the meat or poultry you are serving it alongside. You can also add sautéed onions or mushrooms.
If using the vinaigrette with fruit salad, consider substituting a citrus juice (such as grapefruit, lime, orange, or tangerine) for the vinegar and using oil that is lighter in flavor, color, and consistency (such as canola). Add-ins for this sweeter variation might include lemon or orange zest, poppy seeds, finely minced ginger, cinnamon, or raspberry puree. A sweeter vinaigrette complements fresh spinach well, especially when tossed with feta cheese, raspberries, and candied walnuts.
Because vinaigrette is an unstable emulsification, it will separate if left standing for more than an hour. This will not affect the flavor if you simply shake or whisk the vinaigrette to recombine the vinegar and oil.
Vinaigrette does not have a long shelf life. Although it should be served at room temperature, it should be refrigerated if kept more than an hour or two. You can refrigerate vinaigrette for up to three days. Remove it from the refrigerator half an hour before serving to allow the vinaigrette to come to room temperature.
This basic vinaigrette recipe is an easy, delicious way to dress a vegetable salad. The variations that follow are only a start to the many ways you can modify vinaigrette to suit your taste and culinary needs.
Basic Vinaigrette Recipe
¼ cup balsamic vinegar
¾ cup olive oil
¼ teaspoon salt
freshly ground pepper to taste
In a shallow bowl, season the vinegar with salt and pepper.
Begin whisking with a fork or small wire whisk, and continue whisking as you drizzle the oil in a steady stream. This technique will ensure that it emulsifies smoothly.
Dip a leaf of lettuce to taste. Adjust vinegar, oil, and any seasonings until the flavor is per your preference.
Variations
Experiment with different vinegars. Cider, wine (white, red, and champagne), and rice are only three of the many flavors of vinegars that are available. Each one has a distinctive character that will lend unique flavoring to your vinaigrette.
Experiment with different acids. The foundation of your vinaigrette is an acidic liquid, but it needn’t always be vinegar. Lemon juice is a popular substitute, and it results in a fresh, piquant flavor.
Experiment with flavor bases. Depending on how you are serving your vinaigrette, you may consider adding Dijon mustard, minced garlic, finely grated ginger, or roasted shallot puree to your vinegar prior to whisking in the oil.
Experiment with fresh or dried herbs. Herbs that go particularly well in vinaigrette (again, keeping in mind what you’ll be serving it on) include parsley, tarragon, basil, thyme, oregano, and marjoram. The flavor of dried herbs is always significantly stronger than that of fresh herbs, so it is better to start with just a bit and then increase the amount as needed for flavor.