Recipes! Salad Dressings on the cheap!

Sharp eyed readers might have noticed that when I was posting about containers for food storage yesterday, one of the repurposed containers I mentioned was salad dressing bottles.
I use them to dispense my own salad dressings that I make at home. I usually make my dressings in a quart canning jar and then funnel them into a scalded out salad dressing bottle for ease of use.
What kind of dressings do I make?
ALL of them, lol!
The kids are fond of
Ranch Dressing:

• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1/4 teaspoon paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon mustard powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
• 1 to 2 teaspoons chopped fresh chives (depends on taste)
• 1/4 teaspoon of dry dill (or a teaspoon chopped fresh dill)

 Put buttermilk and mayo in quart jar. Mix buttermilk and mayo together until smooth, add rest of ingredients and tightly cap jar. Shake like crazy to mix well. Funnel into salad dressing bottle, store in fridge.
You can take 1/2 cup of this dressing and add it to 1 cup of sour cream for a nice dip for raw veggies. Mix it with cream cheese--1/4 cup of dressing to one of those little packages of cream cheese for a cracker spread.

Italian Dressing is my absolute favorite, as I can *tweak* it for different flavors.
Italian Dressing:
1 c. extra virgin olive oil
1/4 c. apple cider vinegar  OR white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon finely minced fresh oregano OR 1/2 teaspoon dry oregano
1/2 teaspoon finely minced red bell pepper
1/2 tsp. paprika
1 tsp. finely minced garlic or 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 tsp. finely minced onion or 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1 tsp. finely minced parsley
1 tbsp. grated Parmesan cheese

Put all of the above in a quart jar, cap tightly and shake like the dickens. Funnel into scalded out salad dressing bottle, store in fridge.

Raspberry Dressing:
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons raspberry puree (just take about a dozen raspberries and whirl 'em in your blender or put them through a food mill. Or just smush them up real good with a fork and put them in the quart jar, strain them out after a couple days.Or you can use a bit of frozen raspberries.
1 teaspoon honey
Do the same thing you did for the other dressings, except strain out the raspberry solids after letting the dressing sit in your fridge for a couple days. This is REALLY good on fruit salads!

Sesame Ginger Dressing
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil OR 1/2 cup sunflower seed oil (my preference for this one)
1/4 cup sesame seed oil (I prefer toasted sesame seed oil)
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
4 tablespoons soy sauce ( PLEASE use LOW sodium soy sauce!)
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons sesame seeds
1 tablespoon orange juice
1 teaspoon honey
1 tablespoon corn starch

I mix this in a bowl, adding the cornstarch slowly, whisking it in gradually.THEN I funnel it into a salad dressing bottle. Store in fridge.Shake well before using!

I adore salads...could probably live on them, if I had to. Heck, throw in a couple of decent steak salads and chicken salads and a chef salad once in a while and I would probably prefer to live on salads!