I stopped being vegan in 2011 or so. After countless work trips to Dublin, where the vegan options were (I kid you not) potatoes and Guinness, I began my downward spiral from vegan back to plain-old lacto-ovo vegetarian. It went something like this:
- “I’ll just eat potatoes in Ireland and suffer.”
- “This is awful; I’ll eat cheese in Ireland, but nowhere else.”
- “Hmm, cheese is delicious, and the rest of Europe is also bad at vegan options. I’m going to eat cheese only in Europe.”
- “Okay, I’m going to eat cheese only when traveling.”
- “I’m going to eat cheese only when I’m out of the house.”
- FUCK IT, I EAT CHEESE.
Never during this progression did I think I’d come across a creamy, non-dairy salad dressing. I’ve been quite happy to order the Caesar (let’s conveniently ignore those anchovies, shall we?) and the bleu cheese dressings, and leave the oily-droplet vinaigrettes to the vegans.
Until I met the magic of shallots.
I do not know what alchemy they possess, but it turns out that when you blend (not shake, but really blend) shallots into solution, they make a dressing creamy. It’s insane.
Discovering this took doing something that I am categorically not very good at: Following directions. I googled one evening for [lemon vinaigrette], hoping for, I don’t know, something magical, but expecting merely a good ratio of lemon juice to vinegar to oil. Instead, I found this recipe from Food & Wine, which specifies that your combination of ingredients should occur in a blender.
My salad M.O. for ages has been roughly this:
- Put some stuff in a mason jar, including mustard because it helps emulsification
- Shake
- Call it good enough, and use it to dress a salad.
I’ve even made the above Food & Wine dressing using that method before, and have been happy with it.
However, the marriage of the blender and the shallot is just magic. I am so, so glad I followed directions just that once, because now I know about this.
What I’m presenting to you here is basically the F&W recipe, just less persnickety (who has time for 1/4 tablespoon?!). I actually don’t think the ratios are that precise, so the template is all that matters.
PrintCreamy Vegan Lemon-Shallot Salad Dressing
Shallots magically emulsify, when blended with the oil & vinegar. Double this and keep it in your fridge!
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 0 minutes
- Total Time: 10 minutes
- Yield: Dressing for a salad for 4
- Category: condiments
- Method: blend
Ingredients
- 1 lemon, zest & juice
- 1/2 shallot (33g), roughly chopped
- 1 heaping teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 1 overflowing teaspoon white wine or champagne vinegar
- 1 clove garlic, roughly chopped
- 1/3 C EVOO
Instructions
- Put everything into a pint Mason jar. (Or really anything, but this way you’re making the dressing in the vessel that you’ll be storing the leftover in later.)
- Using your immersion blender (which you should buy now, in case you don’t already have one), blend.
Notes
You don’t need to be very precise about chopping the shallots or garlic, because you’re just going to blend it.
I omit salt & pepper from my salad dressings, because I like to dress the salad with those condiments separately.
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