These 3 Dressings Will Upgrade Any Salad | Epicurious 101

Professional chef Adrienne Cheatham demonstrates how to make three dressings that will upgrade any salad: broken, emulsified, and creamy.

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I’m Adrien chetam I’m a professional chef and today I’m going to show you how to make three salad dressings at home we’re going to be going over techniques that Pros use to whip up easy and delicious salad dressings this is salad dressing 101 today we’re making three basic dressings broken emulsified and creamy or mayonnaise style base once you have these basic ratios and techniques you can literally get as fancy as you want oil and vinegar make a vinegarette so a broken vinegarette means that no matter how much you agitate them and try to combine the two they will eventually separate in the container this is the ideal dressing for a simple salad served along a simple dish like a roast chicken or roasted vegetables with a little side salad a basic broken vinegret doesn’t need anything technically other than oil and vinegar so we are going to add some aromatics just to take it up to the next level I like to use shallots or even Red Onion because they don’t add as much of that sulfurous kind of funky flavor to your vinegarette add some cold water to the jar to let these start soaking for this part I don’t need to measure anything because the water will get poured off I’ll probably let these soak for 2 to 3 minutes just to really help dilute the flavor of the shallot the shallot has soaked for a little bit now I’m just going to pour the water off and build my broken vinegar vret back into the same jar the main thing to remember with vinegrets is kind of the ratio for this broken simple vinegret I’m using two parts oil to one part vinegar a lot of vinegret recipes that you’ll see will say three parts oil to one part vinegar for me that is way too oily for the vinegar I’m going to use a qu of a cup I’m using red wine vinegar but you can use any kind of vinegar that you want you could use any type of oil as well I prefer to use olive oil or extra virgin olive oil for my vinegar so4 cup of red wine vinegar half a cup of extra virgin olive oil the only other things that vinegarette need are seasoning for that we’re going to use a half a teaspoon of fine sea salt if you’re using kosher salt start with the same amount taste it and if you need more just add a little more black pepper 1/4 of a teaspoon the other good thing about using shallots in here is that the vinegar will kind of pickle them so after a couple days of sitting in the vinegret your shallots will have these nice pops of like pickled onion kind of crunchiness in your salads so this is ready to go you can pop it in your fridge and keep it for a couple weeks shake it up when you want to use it or you can go the extra mile and add one more layer of flavor to make your vinegrette really special and that is to add some time I don’t need to chop it I don’t need to do anything else to it just shake it up the essential oils from the herbs will start to infuse in there you could also swap out time for pretty much any herb that you want if you have dry herbs in your pantry add a couple pinches in here and this is how you make a broken vinegrette so I have a nice light mesculin mix a little bit of salt and pepper really changes a salad and helps bring out all the flavors of everything for a basic vinegret why not use a basic lettuce now broken vinegret you have to to shake it and act quickly so as soon as I shake it I’m going to drizzle start tossing and get right on the plate because it will really separate in real time just a light drizzle because a little bit really does go a long way with a broken vinegarette M that is the perfect amount of oil and vinegar well balanced really brings out the flavor of the lettuce while keeping everything in your mouth bright and and fresh and ready for the next bite we are going to make a basic emulsified vinegret emulsified means that the fat and the liquid component in this case vinegar are fully suspended and dispersed within each other so you’re not getting separate oil and separate vinegar you’re getting a homogeneous mixture of oil and vinegar fully emulsified that will not break you can take your broken vinegar and make an emulsified vinegret out of that the only difference really is that you’re adding an agent to keep them fully suspended together so if I’m eating something richer something fatty something heavy I would want something that’s more of an emulsified vinegrette first I need to Anchor my bowl there are a few different things that are natural emulsifiers Dijon mustard is probably the most popular and one of the most effective you have to start with the emulsifier and then add your liquid I’m going going to add a half a teaspoon of salt because everything needs salt pepper about 1/4 teaspoon garlic and you don’t need to chop this by hand I just like to use a microplan a/4 cup of Sherry vinegar I love the flavor of cherry vinegar it’s a little earthy a little funky but you could substitute any type of acid lemon juice would work great got my whisk I’m going to make sure that the Dijon is fully dissolved into the liquid and for this I’m using regular olive oil straight extra virgin olive oil can get really bitter in broken vinegarette I like to do two parts fat to one part acid in the emulsified vinegarette I like to bring it up on the fat to three parts the more fat that you add into an emulsified vinegret will make it thicker I really want it to have enough viscosity to coat the lettuce nice and evenly all right let’s do this so you want want to start getting the motion and then slowly start to add your oil because you really need to disperse that fat into the mixture to get it stbl sometimes I use a blender for this or even a hand blender if you go too fast it’s just going to stick together all these tiny droplets of oil will not separate they’ll just come together and stay together in the vinegar so keep whisking for a few seconds after you finished adding the oil just to make sure that everything is thoroughly combined so if you see here it’s not separating it’s homogeneous in one color from top to bottom that is thick enough to coach your lettuce beautifully and if it separates just use a blender and pour it slowly in with another teaspoon of Dijon mustard in the bottom a little bit of salt and pepper here I’m using sliced Roma because Roma has a really high water content it’s crispy it’s crunchy that’ll help offset the crunchiness of the emulsified vinegarette the emulsified vinegret coats the lettuce beautifully and gives you an even amount of fat and acid in every single bite the Cherry vinegar gives it a little bit of sweetness and it gives you that punchiness and a little bit of Spice from the Dijon the last dressing that I’m going to show you how to make is an emulsified in the style of mayonnaise the thing that makes mayna mayonnaise different from another type of emulsified vinegret is that mayonnaise uses egg yolks as the emulsifier instead of Dijon mustard so we’re using egg yolks here to hold our oil and our vinegar together I would love a creamy dressing with something lean and light like fish because it’s going to add some of that fat content that I’m not getting and help balance everything out I’m going to start with about one small clove of garlic adding half a teaspoon of whole black peppercorns two egg yolks about a teaspoon of salt we’re still sticking with a/4 of a cup of acid but half of that is going to be lemon juice and the other half of that is going to be apple cider vinegar the apple cider vinegar is going to give us a little bit of like funky earthy Umami kind of flavor and the lemon juice is going to give us bright floral acid flavors to really liven up this creamy vinegarette now some people are kind of weirded out about using raw egg yolks if you’re not comfortable by pasteurized egg yolks and use that just like making the emulsified vinegrette using beon mustard we’re going to get this going together first before we start adding our oil for the oil in this recipe I’m using half a cup of neutral oil and half a cup of extra virgin olive oil I don’t want to use 100% extra virgin olive oil because it will get very bitter partially because that is the flavor profile so using a blender makes a really stable emulsion and it’s creating these teeny tiny like microscopic globules of fat to be dispersed within the liquid so you see how white and pale the yolks are already getting it looks like they’re cooked now I’m going to start drizzling in the oil slowly neutral oil one thing that you really want to try to avoid doing is jacking the speed up because if you go too fast it can kind of shock the Emulsion and make things break and separate so I have some parsley and some d some of the tender stems and the leaves and I’m just going to put these right in roughly chopped and again I’m going to make sure my speed is on low and I’m going to start to let these herbs just break down a little bit and start to flavor the dressing without becoming a fullon puree there just a couple of seconds for that and we are done oh my God that is so pretty and it smells so good good and that is how you make a creamy vinegret a little bit of salt and pepper this has a good amount of black pepper in it so I don’t need too much this vinegret is thicker so I’m not just going to pour it these greens are in the chory family so everything has a little bit of bitterness a little bit more hearty flavor and they stand up to a thicker vinegret because they have a more assertive flavor of their own I love Endive in kind of bitter chory greens M that is so floral and so Herby you’re getting all that dill and all that parsley little bits of pepper everything is so well balanced you get some brightness and acidity you also get earthy notes like this is a meal in itself or it can be served alongside something but to me a creamy dressing with all this beautiful flavor and aromatics is kind of the main event this is the kind of salad that I would add a very light protein to like a poached or just simple chicken breast and really just let it absorb all the flavors around it another thing that I would do a little end dive and just use it as a dip it’s so versatile making salad dressing at home is really easy you get to use up a ton of ingredients that you already have in your pantry and you get to Leave Out All The Unwanted additives that are in store-bought processed salad dressing once you have the basic ratios and techniques on how to make these different types of salad dressings at home you can do anything your mind can come up with I’m oil I’m liquid we don’t like each other