Quick & Easy Vintage Salad Dressing Recipes: Herb • Ranch • Blue Cheese

Dear Dr. Julie-Ann,

We love eating salads but I’m becoming concerned about all the unpronounceable ingredients in the bottles of dressing I buy at the store. Do you have any vintage recipes that you can share with me?

Sincerely,
Undressed

Dear Undressed,

If you’ve only had bottled salad dressing (or the packets of dressing) from the store, you’re going to love the three quick and easy vintage recipes for herb, ranch, and blue cheese dressings I’m going to share with you today.  Most of those unpronounceable ingredients in bottle or packet dressings are there to extend the shelf life.  To me, they diminish the flavor of the dressing and make it seem a bit industrial tasting.  These three classic salad dressings are so delicious, they don’t need preservatives in them because they’ll be used up long before they go bad.  

If you love Italian dressing, the herb dressing is for you.  The herb dressing recipe relies on dried herbs you probably already have on your spice rack.  Play around with the type of oil you use for different undertones.  You can also add other herbs or seasonings to it–I sometimes add garlic powder–it is that flexible of dressing. This salad dressing is adapted from an early 1960s Ladies Home Journal Cookbook.

Ranch is the most popular type of salad dressing.  I found a clipping for this vintage ranch dressing recipe in my grandmother’s recipe box.  The clipping claims it is for the original ranch dressing developed at the Hidden Valley Ranch in California.  Now, I don’t know if it is true or not but it is very delicious and has a light flavor to it.  You’ll end up pouring it over everything–we love it over roasted veggies.  The original recipe called for using MSG flavor enhancement, such as Accent, but I don’t think it needs it and don’t use it.

The third recipe is for lovers of blue cheese salad dressing.  Unlike the first two recipes where you can just dump the ingredients into a jar and shake them up, this one requires a couple of rounds of blending to get the creamy, yet lumpy, texture we associate with blue cheese dressing.  That said, it is still a really easy dressing to make.  This vintage recipe is adapted from The Royal Coach Hotel in Texas.  It lasts about a week so feel free to also use it as a dipping sauce you can enjoy its goodness before it goes bad.

To show you just how easy it is to make these three dressings, I’ve created a short YouTube video that demonstrates me making them.  I’ve also added printable recipe cards for each of the dressings to the Printables Resource Library.  You need to be a subscriber to my email list to access the free printables library.  Not a subscriber yet? All you need to do for instant access is complete the form, below.

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Your Turn

What is your favorite salad dressing recipe?  Is it an old family favorite?  Share your thoughts and recipes in the comments!

To your fabulous Technicolor day!

Dr.JulieAnn

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Dr. Julie-Ann

I'm Dr. Julie-Ann, living life in its Technicolor finest by channeling my Grandma, Donna Reed, and June Cleaver with a bit of Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly glamour thrown in for good measure, too. I work outside of the home full-time as a university administrator helping professors and graduate students achieve their teaching goals but I nourish my soul and find tremendous happiness trying to be the "perfect" 1950s homemaker.

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