I’m having an issue with the salad thread. When Dan said he uses two parts oil, one part vinegar, we were all a little surprised. That’s a lot of oil. So at risk of sounding like a bad Dr. Phil episode, here are my $0.02 on salad dressing.
Oil is the liquifier, not the flavor. Mayonnaise is the thickener, not the flavor. So if you have three tablespoons of salad dressing that is two parts olive oil or mayo, (which ain’t much, the way most people douse their greens), you’re already at about 240 calories.
240 calories =
120 grape tomatoes
or
32 cups of lettuce
or
20 slices of deli turkey
or
4 “Fun Size” Snickers
or
1 McDonald’s hamburger
or
1/5 of a barbacoa burrito at Chipotle before sour cream or guac (sorry guys)
There’s a little perspective for you. And one more time: Chipotle is not owned by McDonald’s.
I shared my thoughts on salads. I’m not afraid of one that’s got a lot of calories. I just want the calories to come from steak, fried chicken, bacon, blue cheese, avocado, anything OTHER than oil and mayo that don’t really add flavor.
And if you cooked a vegetable or piece of meat in oil, try really hard to drain the oil after it’s cooked. It’s sloppy.
Off my salad soapbox!
I bet so many of you don’t care. That’s okay too. 
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Thank you lillith! And I would just like to go on record as saying that mayonnaise is the single most vile substance in the entire world. The less its used in anything, the better.
I generally dislike being a pain when ordering, but I often have to order my salads with the dressing on the side or else I get my greens swimming in the stuff. I know I skew on the side of “lightly dressed” when it comes to salads, but in general do people like a ton of dressing? Is that why so many restaurants seem to overdress their salads?
I haven’t measured the actual amount of dressing we use on our salads, but I would guess it’s about 1 tablespoon per. Salads “for here” we toss when ordered, so a little dressing goes a long way. The general rule I tell our salad people is to err on the side of too little dressing, since that’s easy enough to fix (as opposed to remaking a salad b/c there was too much dressing).
“To go” salads on the other hand come with 4 oz (8TB!) of dressing on the side, but that’s more b/c less would look like we’re skimping on the dressing, rather than b/c one needs to use that much dressing. I get the sense that people don’t use it all, but I think people would they didn’t get a full side of dressing if it was only half full.
My final thought on the acid/oil ratio. Before I opened Eppie’s, I didn’t know how to make salad dressings. I learned from people who make the dressings at restaurants better than mine (and from reading “celebrity” chef and CIA recipes). I played around with their recipes to figure out what I thought worked best on our salads, but their recipes were almost exclusively 1 part acid / 2 parts oil or 1 part acid / 3 parts oil. Does this mean you have to or should use that ratio? Not at all. You should totally make dressing that you think tastes right. I just wanted people to know why we use 1 acid / 2 oil.
And I’ll second lilith’s notion that the oil is not the flavor, but rather the thickener. You can do all kinds of crazy stuff with dressings / vinaigrettes, but it’s generally not the oil that enhances the flavor, unless you’re using bacon grease or something like that. We personally use a canola / EV oil blend, but lilith’s calorie counter was spot on (1TB = 120 calories, mostly fat, but at least it’s mono and poly unsat.).
Let me also throw my hat in the anti-mayo ring. I can do tartar sauce (Zinc’s was awesome on the Fish and Chips), or Caesar dressing (Zocalo being my favorite with the hint of heat), but just plain mayo is easily my least favorite condiment.
Maybe it’s just because I am to olive oil what Lindsey Lohan is to Barney’s, but I use about a 2 to 1 ratio of oil to vinegar. That being said, I always use a very high quality oil and I dress my salad very lightly. If the greens are good, too much vinegar overwhelmes them IMHO. In fact, I just use oil on arugula.
I’ll cop to the fact that oil shouldn’t be the main flavor, but unless you’re using really crappy oil, it should DEFINITELY add flavor.
My current favorite vinaigrette uses roasted walnut oil (and you’d have to be completely devoid of taste buds not to taste the damn oil!) and sherry vinegar (probably a 1:1 ratio), sea salt, fresh ground black pepper, and a dollop of dijon mustard (both for flavor and to help the emulsification).
Extra virgin olive oil, hazelnut oil, sesame oil, REAL peanut oil (tastes like roasted peanuts), all these oils are highly flavorful and make wonderful salad dressings. La Tourangelle is a great brand (pricey, but you can buy it on Amazon much cheaper).
The traditional French ratio tends to run 3 parts good oil to 1 part acid, but you can substitute other things for some of the oil. Even a bit of water, for instance. I sometimes use some red onion/shallot/garlic/citrus zest and a bit of honey and Dijon and then whir it with the stick-blender for a brief second to grind up the chunks. The veggies cut some of the acidity and add their own natural sweetness.
Divine Ms K is right, the oil adds wonderful flavor– imagine a bright fruity olive oil (as opposed to the vile 10-W-40 used by many places). And oil (fat) carries flavor molecules across the palate, enhancing the overall experience. Perhaps it’s chefs drowning salads with dressing that are giving it a bad name.
Aw, mayo’s gorgeous if it’s homemade. You’re not supposed to be chugging vast quantities of it. And what would life be like without aioli or remoulade? That’s mayo with stuff in it.
Of course the proper ratio of oil to vinegar is 3:1. Nothing else will do. And you should toss the greens first in the oil then a splash of vinegar, then salt and pepper to taste. And if a salad is properly tossed, then you need barely a teaspoon of said dressing to coat an average salad.
I highly recommend walnut vinegar if you can find it.
Also, for the record? Your future husband is going to fall for you for your gorgeous sense of humor. And your smile. Get what you want, and your babies will be beautiful. I promise.
Honeycup honey mustard, plain, or with a little apple cider vinegar and milk to make a tossing dressing.