Hmm, not sure it makes for the most exciting title but salads needn’t be boring and, with a bit of thought, they make a good (healthy) low effort meal.
Mostly a salad dressing is just some olive oil, vinegar, garlic, maybe some mustard but if I’m going to make a meal out of a salad I find I need a bit more inspiration.
This first dressing I like because it makes use of tahini. I buy a jar of tahini, needing a tablespoon of it for something or other, and then it hangs around the fridge for ages and ages – so I love recipes that use it. The original of this comes from Cuisine, but commits the culinary crime of using orange and the sugar is totally unnecessary. In fact, this is really a dressing which needs no recipe: just take olive oil, lemon juice, some mustard (I used grainy) and some tahini (when making salad dressing for two, I just use a teaspoon of tahini). Give it all a good shake and it makes a lovely creamy, rich dressing. This works perfectly well on a standard green salad but because it is creamy I don’t use it on a salad which includes feta cheese.
If you have a bit more time on your hands, then this dressing from Ainsley Harriott’s Friends and Family Cookbook.* This is a Caesar salad style dressing, so don’t bother reading on if you’re on some kind of low calorie health kick …
Crush two anchovies (I used a mortar and pestle to make this dressing), and add a clove of garlic. Make a smooth paste. Mix in 3 tablespoons of mayonnaise (I used bought – we had that lying around in the fridge too, left over from something a while back), 1 tablespoon of sour cream, a teaspoon of Dijon mustard and a teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce. Finally add Tabasco to taste and any seasoning you find necessary. I put in plenty of Tabasco so no pepper required and the anchovies were salty enough.
I used this dressing on a green salad, made with Roma tomatoes from the garden, a few warm, diced potatoes and chicken (marinated in olive oil, paprika, garlic and parsley before being fried up – also thanks to Mr Harriott). It was absolutely brilliant – loads of flavour, and certainly enough for dinner.
Just not particularly healthy!
*Also available from Amazon UK
