I’m going to have the opportunity to order some salad dressings from the US online (cause the ones over here suck). I need recommendations.
I’ve tried only a handful of dressings while in the US so I’m not familiar with most brands. The best one I’ve tasted while there was the one they give out at McDonald’s - Newman’s Own Creamy Caesar “restaurant version”.
Can anyone give me some good brands for the following dressings (keep in mind I don’t like sweetness, I like tangy and fatty mostly):
Italian (creamy italian and robust italian) Raspberry vinaigrette Sun-dried tomato vinaigrette Ranch Caesar Blue Cheese
And tell me anything more you may want to share. I haven’t tried Ken’s Steak House dressings - are they good? What about Newman’s Own Parmesan & Roasted Garlic? That one sounds yummy. So many questions :o
I only like Italian and Ranch, and as far as they go Wishbone and HVR, respectively, are the only ones I buy. Other brands are usually acceptable, but the Wishbone and HVR are the only ones that taste right to me.
Newman’s Own dressings tend to have an odd off-taste, but maybe that’s just me.
I’ve never found a bottled bleu cheese dressing that was any good. It’s true I haven’t looked that hard, either, but I’ve still never found one. And I’m a little leery of all the stuff they have to put in it to preserve it - I don’t use salad dressing that often, and if it goes bad before I used it again, it’s not worth the cost.
Luckily, bleu cheese dressing is dead easy to make, and fantastic too. And you only make a couple of cups at a time, so it’s easy to use up. I generally use the Cooks Illustrated recipe, but there’s lots out there.
Man I just bought my first bottle of Wishbone Italian in a long time (I’m not much of a home salad eater) and that shit was SWEET. Not as in “awesome” but as in “full of sugar.”
Not sure if my tastes have changed that much since I quite smoking or if they just started adding more sugar, but I couldn’t have more than one serving of it before giving up.
I finally made myself some Good Seasons Italian and it’s…better. Still not exactly what I am looking for but not sweet.
If I could buy myself a huge plastic jar of whatever the creamy Italian is at Pizza Hut, I think I would eat salad every day for the rest of my life.
I’m partial to Bernstein’s Cheese and Garlic Italian. While I’m not fond of Caesar dressing, my wife swears by Girard’s.
For a completely different spin, Trader Joe’s has a Cranberry Walnut Gorgonzola dressing (usually kept in their refrigerated produce section) that is awesome. My pregnant wife has banned it from our house because she can’t have soft/moldy cheeses while pregnant, and thus, I can’t have it either.
Hee. I just found the recipe - it’s from Cooks Illustrated, published May 1, 1999. I’ll paraphrase here.
~1/2 cup bleu cheese, crumbled
3 tablespoons buttermilk
3 tablespoons sour cream
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
Table salt and ground black pepper
–Use a fork to combine and mash the bleu cheese and buttermilk. You’re looking for a consistency that resembles cottage cheese
–Whisk the bleu cheese/buttermilk mixture with all remaining ingredients. The vinegar is essential - gives it a nice zing.
–Taste and adjust seasonings as needed.
I do occasionally make my own, but I have this “thing” where I tend to prefer store bought ones. I also like to get a taste of something new and then I can aspire to make it myself.
Anyway, thanks everyone for all the recommendations so far. The one thing I’m sure of is Hidden Valley Ranch seems like the popular favorite ranch dressing so I’ll stick with that.
Another vote for Newman’s Own - I’ve tried at least a half-dozen of their dressings (and think they have all of the varieties mentioned in the OP), and really liked all of them. Plus the reduced-fat versions are actually tasty.
I’ve only heard good things about Newman’s dressings. The one or two I’ve tried were nice.
We get Ken’s Steak House dressing fairly often in Ranch. For a prepared dressing, their Blue Cheese isn’t bad, IIRC. I think I’ve liked all the ones I’ve tried of Ken’s.
If you find a Buttermilk Dressing, give that a try. It’s similar to ranch, but better. It was everywhere around here until Ranch came out and replaced it for some reason. (This was, I dunno, 20 years ago?)
But my latest kick, in a reversion to childhood, is Green Goddess. And until I just Googled for that, I didn’t realize that anyone besides Kraft made it commercially!
The SO usually has Ott’s original, which is a French-type dressing. American-style French-type, that is, which is entirely different than anything called French that you’d get anywhere else, much less France.
Newman’s Own is my favorite salad dressing brand. I love their raspberry and walnut and creamy Caesar. I don’t like sweet dressings either and I find that NO usually aren’t sweet.
Kraft dressings are completely inedible because of all the sugar they dump in them. Blech.
This. Even if you don’t want to go from absolute scratch, Good Seasons makes a really good Italian mix. You provide your own vinegar and oil, and put in a package of Good Seasons, mix, and it’s really good.
