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It makes an exceptional vinaigrette dressing with olive oil, optionally basilled to taste.
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If you like cooked spinach drizzled with vinegar, it’s the ideal second choice vinegar (after tarragon) for use there.
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Marinades. To my taste, if you use rosemary with balsamic vinegar in a beef marinade, you need just a touch of basil as well.
Drop the vinegar, and try strawberries with just a little black pepper. Honestly, the combination works ridiculously well. I saw this on a cookery programme years ago and was initially sceptical, but I’ve rarely had strawberries any other way since.
In all honesty, I really don’t measure. Its usually just me, so I would guess I use a little more than 1/4 cup of vinegar, and about a tablespoon of butter. I need to make some tonight to be sure the numbers are right…
Thanks! That’s enough to get me started, then I’ll add or subtract to taste.
Everything! I hadn’t heard about the strawberry thing. Now I must know.
Salad dressings, mariniades, sauces. Brightens up the favors. I’d just drink it out of the bottle. Always a good add.
Wow, you guys all use a LOT of balsamic vinegar. A quart?!
Me, I find it to be very sweet. If I’m using it in a vinaigrette I’ll base the dressing on white wine vinegar, and just flavor it with a modicum of balsamic. The same with using it in pasta sauces - to me, it’s a concentrated condiment to be used as an enhancement, rather than a base.
This might be a cultural pallete difference, as I know foods in the US generally contain a lot more sugar than we use over here.
I love to slice up strawberries (here we go again!) and marinate them in balsamic vinegar overnight, then spoon the mixture over good vanilla ice cream. Preferably Breyer’s. It is AWESOME.
You can’t go wrong with the salad dressing, marinade, and bread dip recipes here either. It’s one of my favorite condiments, to the point where I’ve even sipped chilled shot glasses full of the stuff.
Wow, I just looked up the nutritional information for Balsamic Vinegar.
0 Calories
0 Fat
0 Cholesterol
0 Sodium
0 Carbohydrate
? Sugar? (not listed)
I assume that if it had sugar in it that would be listed? Since I’ve never, to my knowledge, actually tasted Balsamic Vinegar, I had no idea it was in any way sweet. Now it makes a little more sense over strawberries. I was thinking regular vinegar with more spices.
Thanks for this thread. I guess it’s about time I open that bottle that I’ve had for several years but never opened because I had no idea what to do with it (sitting there beside the bottle of Red Wine Vinegar, the White Wine Vinegar, the Rice Vinegar and a couple other bottles that have never been opened). Does Balsamic Vinegar go bad if it hasn’t been opened?
Black pepper on strawberries though? That’s whack!
What you probably have is commercial balsamic vinegar, which is just fine for everyday usage. Real aged balsamic vinegar will set you back your kid’s college tuition, and is right up there with manna and ambrosia as Food of the Gods. AFAIK it doesn’t go bad.
Another strawberry usage…fresh berries, creme fraiche and a splash of balsamic vinegar…oh, so good. I add just a touch of sweetener to the berries if they are a bit tart. After reading all these concoctions, I want some right now…
You’ll be wanting to look up recipes for salad dressings or marinades, which is usually how those things are used.
Nope. It’s yummy. But ground black pepper - not that fluffy stuff you put in your pepper shaker.
Also try the olive oil + balsamic vinegar + bread thing. You need good virgin olive oil, though. The regular stuff isn’t as tasty.
Geesh. Now I’ve got a craving for that. Fortunately, I do have strawberries so I can have them. Need me a nice fresh mini-baguette, though.
From what I’ve heard, in Italy, what they do with balsamic vinegar is drink it. You can see old men sitting on the porch, sipping vinegar out of small glasses.
No it’s not, it’s one of those tastebud sensations that only come around a few times in life. Trust your fellow Dopers
Oh, yeah. Get some quality vinegar, a little fruit, a little bread and cheese, and watch the world go by. One day I want to be rich enough…
I’ve never seen anybody actually sipping away at balsamic vinegar, but the real stuff is complex and non-vinegary enough that it is possible I suppose. Helluva expensive though - the old guys are probably getting some grappa down their neck while pretending to their wives that it’s a less controversial restorative. That’s what seems to happen in Barga anyway.
Thanks, now I don’t feel weird about licking the bowl, I mixed my drizzle in. 
I think I’m going to invest in a bigger bottle. I only have 12 oz. Thanks everybody, for the great ideas.
For salad dressing, I mix balsamic vinegar, olive oil, lemon juice, minced garlic, ground black pepper, and basil. I serve it on spinach with tomatoes and feta…mmm…yummy.
Absolutely. A couple of years ago my dad and I were looking through a gourmet foods shop, and they had some very high-quality balsamic vinegars there. A salesperson took us to a counter in the back and cracked open one of the nicer bottles to give us each a small taste. It wasn’t vinegary at all and went down very smooth. Something like $15 for a bottle no bigger than a fist, if not smaller.
Even the cheaper stuff at the local supermarket is tasty enough that when I pour it into a bowl with some olive oil for dipping bread, I’ll sneak a quick sip or two.
Oh, one other use–I once had it as a garnish on a plate of sushi. You could dip the fish into it like you’d do with ponzu sauce.
for bread you can also take it a bit further,
get some extra virgin olive oil and some finely chopped garlic, (this is one time a garlic press is actually useful)
and just warm it in a sauce pan until the garlic turns translucent.
then add the Basalmic after the mix cools down and dip some bread in it…grrrrrrrrr making myself hungry.
(edit) something I learned on Good Eats, the finer you chop garlic the more heat and garlicy it tastes, the less you chop it the sweeter it is. this is because garlic contains 2 separate chemicals that mix when you chop it to make a third, this third chemical is the one thats hot.
not really chemicals but you get the idea.