Letting Dressing Rest
While you can use this dressing recipe right away, I think you will find you enjoy it more if you use it 24 hours after making it. This resting time allows the flavors to marinate together and it is much more tasty after. Here I am a million years later raising kids who feel the exact same way. My kids, who were once opposed to dressing and salad all together, have fallen in love with Italian Dressing and will now happily eat a side salad at dinner time. Can you blame them? The flavors of this salad dressing come together like a smooth symphony. Olive oil and red wine vinegar work together in perfect balance. To that we add a few herbs and spices, some garlic, and red pepper flakes and you have homemade salad dressing perfection. I love making my own salad dressings, and this one is at the top of the list! Mix a small amount of mayonnaise with the vinegar. The mayonnaise works as an emulsifier. Emulsifying is a fun chemistry trick and the emulsifier works like a bridge holding the two parts (in this case oil and vinegar) together. The mayonnaise isn’t required, but will hold the dressing together without changing the taste. It will even keep it from solidifying in the refrigerator. All of that being said, you want to keep both extra virgin olive oil and regular olive oil on hand. Extra virgin olive oil is better for salad dressings and sauces that aren’t cooked, but for cooking you want to use regular olive oil as it has a higher smoke point and won’t burn as easily.
Storing Italian Salad Dressing Recipe
This dressing recipe, and really all salad dressing recipes, should be stored in the refrigerator. This is true whether or not you decide to use mayonnaise in the recipe, though adding the mayonnaise will keep the oil from solidifying in the refrigerator. This dressing can be stored in the refrigerator and used for up to 2 weeks.
Using Dressing as a Marinade
This is a perfect recipe to use as a marinade. The oil will lend flavor while the vinegar breaks down the meat and allows in the other herbs and flavors in the dressing. Keep in mind that chicken and fish only need to marinate for about 30 minutes while steak and pork do better when the marinate for closer to six hours. Note that no meat should marinate for longer than 24 hours or it will result in meat that has broken down too much and is gummy.
This would be perfect to use in my Italian Pasta Salad. You could replace the dressing in my Cucumber Tomato Salad with this. One of my favorite ways to eat it as a child was over steamed broccoli! You could toss it with my Air Fryer Broccoli for a similar affect.
If you make this homemade Italian dressing recipe or any of my other recipes, please leave me a comment and let me know what you think. I always love hearing from you.
