Lusciously Creamy Italian Dressing
February 15, 2022
: 1 ½ cups
: 15 min
:
: 15 min
: easy
Years ago, I was eating with a friend at a local Italian restaurant, celebrating my birthday. The entrée was mediocre to say the least, but of all things, the dressing on the green salad was out of this world! Savoring each leaf of lettuce, I fear that I was a poor guest since all I could focus on was this heavenly dressing. So, I came home and used my Basic Creamy Vinaigrette recipe as base to whip up my own version of this divine Italian dressing. Try your hand at it and you will be hooked, too!
Ingredients
- 2 oz. cream cheese
- ½ cup buttermilk, reduced or full fat
- ¼ cup red wine vinegar
- ½ cup and 2 T. extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 T. and 1 t. minced shallots
- 1 small clove minced garlic
- 1 ½ t. or a little more of honey
- 2 T. Grey Poupon Country Dijon Mustard
- 1 T. freshly squeezed lemon juice
- ¼ t. dried Italian seasoning
- Pinch of dried tarragon, dill, and thyme (less than 1/8 each).
- ¼ t. sea salt, plus more if needed
- 1/8 t. white pepper
Directions
- Step 1 Prep the ingredients. Coarsely chop the garlic and shallots, tossing them into a medium mixing bowl. Pour in the vinegar, oil, and buttermilk, and add them to the mixing bowl. Squeeze in the lemon juice and combine it with the honey, mustard, cream cheese, salt, pepper, and herbs (the tarragon, dill, thyme, and Italian seasoning). Stir the ingredients.
- Step 2 Blend the ingredients. Pour all the contents in a blender (try using a single serve attachment, which is made for juicers, but if you don’t have the luxury of one, a regular blender works well, too). Blend until creamy and dress your favorite salad, even my simple green salad. Just go light on the dressing since you want the flavor of the lettuce and herbs to predominate. The dressing will store in the fridge for 1 week.
Try your hand at this lusciously creamy Italian dressing and you’ll see it lives up to its name! Here a rich base of buttermilk and cream cheese is balanced by the tang of vinegar and lemon juice and the pungency of shallots and garlic.