I like French or Catalina with a little Ranch thrown in on top. Now I want a salad. I also use Ranch as a dipping sauce for many things … veggies, plain potato chips, cheese nuggets.
I’ve never been brave enough to try Thousand Island. What the heck is in that stuff anyway? Looks nasty! I’m also wary of bleu cheese. I generally don’t eat food if it has mold on it.
12 y.o. balsamic vinegar + excellent olive oil + salt + pepper = muchos tasty vinaigrette.
I could live on that stuff. Sometimes I add a little dijon mustard to the mix. Booyeah.
Olde Cap Cod’s Light Balsamic (my absolute favourite…my parents are promising to mail it to me) and as a runner-up
Market Basket Honey Dijon
I use half the serving size so those are only about 40 to 45 calories each and the taste is so incredible you wouldn’t believe it’s that low-cal.
Ranch is both the best and worst of all salad dressings. It is certainly the tastiest…but it also the one most likely to kill you via food poisoning. Damn salad bars and their vats o’ ranch. Irresistable…yet so deadly.
Yes, indeedily. Moosewood Restaurant’s ginger-miso dressing, specifically.
Know what I hate? Reduced-fat dressing. They all taste like they’re 60% corn starch. And they have that grainy mouthfeel. shudder
They are, overall, VERY good. They make my favorite store-bought dressing, which is their Raspberry Viniagrette (in their light line, but doesn’t taste like it). They also make a nice Sesame dressing, also, that I like to use on raw vegetables like snow peas or cabbage.
At a restaurant, though, there’s nothing that beats a really good balsamic viniagrette. I just can’t clone the taste at home of a good Italian bistro…
I don’t know what the best is, but I’ve tasted the worst.
A number of years back we were having dinner at my grandparents’ place. My grandmother is a sweet, wonderful lady and I love her dearly, but she could never cook. Their meals were awful, but we always went anyway because it made her happy.
Anyway, a salad was presented to commence the meal. A bottle of salad dressing, No-name French, was onb the table, so we poured it on our salads and began eating. Well, we took one bite anyway, and then we leapt back from the table in shock and horror.
My grandmother, it seems, had had about 10% left in six or seven bottles of different kinds of salad dressing. So she’d mixed them all together - French, Italian, Blue Cheese, Thousand Islands - all in one horrible, stomch-turning ooze.
95% of the time I just make my own dressing at home.
It can be as simple as Salt & Pepper and oil & balsamic.
But, I mix it up with other vinegars, honey, mustard, garlic, lemon juice, worcestershire.
For store bought, there’s a Bleu Cheese called “Marie’s” or something that is good. I also like a store bought Caesar’s but I can’t remember the brand (it’s not Kraft or Newman’s or any of the biggies, though). A bit of that on Romaine lettuce with croutons is something I enjoy.
I very much dislike Ranch.
If I’m buying in a store, I’ll usually get Price Chopper ceasar. It’s suprisingly good, but I do tend to only use it on Caesar-esque salads. Byt that, I maen pretty much just romaine and maybe croutons I don’t like to have to drag out my cheese grater to put fresh parm on it. If i want a salald, I want it NOW!
For salads that have other stuff, like carrots, brocolli, etc…that wouldn’t taste right with caesar, it’s usualyl Italian (Kraft’s zesty Italian is the onlty Kraft one I like) or Thousand Island (Newman’s Own or Price Chopper brand.)
Oh, and to those who don’t know the diff. between French, Russian, and Thousand Island, here’s a rundown:
Russian: Basically mayo and ketchup mixed in perfect proportion. Might sound odd at first (at least on a salad,) but a good Russian is a few steps up from just a mix of Hellman’s and Heinz.
Thousand Island: Same as Russian, but with pickle relish thrown in as well (all the little pieces of pickel are the “islands”, you see.) Tastes alsmost the same, but has a satisfying crunch.
French: I don’t know what it is, other than nasty. To me, it tastes like nothing but orange corn syrup. Blech. SO Miss Purl McKnittington, go ahead and try Thousand Island. It’s newhere NEAR as sweet as French, and had a satisftying tanginess.
Tom’s Steakhouse brand are pretty good. I especially like their Nothern Italian dressing–basically a tangy Italian with romano cheese in it. Yum.
Trunk mentioned Marie’s. It’s pretty good, and T. Marzetti has several iterations of bleu cheese dressing you can try too. You’ll usually find them in the produce aisle, refrigerated.
My husband loves the Paul Newman dressings. Red wine vinegar mixed with a little olive oil works for me. I like Ranch too, but it is best when it’s freshly made at home.
Wow. I just bought some bacon honey french and bleu cheese salad dressings today. The bleu cheese is so so (like ranch) but the bacon honey french is amazing. This is my new favorite by far.
Green goddess is the best. Especially the stuff they serve at the Velvet Turtle restaurant in LA. Just heavenly. I’ve never found a recipe that tastes anywhere near as good. And the stuff I’ve had in bottles is too tangy and not flavorful enough.
For me, the worst is thousand island.
The point of my earlier post and seconded by others, is forget all the supermarket crap and make your dressing out of simple ingredients like balsamic or other good vinegars, olive oil, etc. Taste and nutritionally wise you and your body will thank you for the substitution of hydrogenated vegetable oils and other useless ingredients.
End of rant 
There is almost always a bottle of Ken’s Steakhouse Greek dressing in our refrigerator. I’ve also had their Italian and their dressings are consistently top-notch and higher quality than almost any other bottled dressing. Very tasty dressings.
Sitting here at my computer there are no salad dressings in view. :rolleyes:
I think I’m in love–I live on that vinaigrette, too. I’ll have to try some dijon mustard too.
However, just the plain vinaigrette recipe above (made with kosher salt and freshly ground peppercorns), on a bed of mixed greens and sunflower seeds. I think I know what I’m having for dinner tonight!
I’m sorry but ceaser salad dressing out of a bottle in no way resembles actual ceaser salad dressing that is fresh made.
Judging from my friends’ reaction, Ranch.
I opened a bottle from my pantry and served it with raw vegetables. A good friend said it tasted “off.” It also was a tad thick.
Turns out the “best used before” date was 1997, meaning it was bottled in 1996!
As far as I’m concerned, the best salad dressing is a thick, juicy steak.