may 22, 2019

Homemade vinaigrette in your fridge will inspire you to eat more salad. That’s a fact and I am witness to this truth. There is a very good reason to save jars and that is to fill them with dressings and vinaigrettes you have made in your very own kitchen, with love and care and seasonal ingredients. Local spring carrots would make a fine carrot honey vinaigrette. Last spring it was Vidalia Onion Vinaigrette and today the focus is on local berries.

Fresh local strawberries taste nothing like their commercially grown cousins in grocery clamshells. Exteriors are deeply red and fragrant and interiors are sweet, unlike the pale spongy innards of a strawberry grown far, far away. They are so tasty that you may not need to add any honey to this dressing, if you are lucky to find some local jewels. This spring the berries are better than ever, likely due to some weather aberration or perhaps the Strawberry Fairy has waved her sparkly wand over the plants and blessed them with extraordinary flavor.

Local strawberries are best for this vinaigrette, with their natural sweetness and bright color. These are from Agriberry, locally beloved for seasonal produce.

Most pink things are not to my liking, probably because I overdosed on pink furnishings and wall paint in my early homeowinng years, but I make an exception for delicious things like this vinaigrette. I see it in the fridge and smile because I know my salad will have the tang of local sweet strawberries without the cloying sweetness of store-bought dressings. One of my favorite kitchen toys, the stick blender, comes with this handy beaker attachment which I fill with vinaigrette ingredients and buzz them into submission with a few whirs of the blender.

A stick blender makes quick work of this vinaigrette.

This dressing is also a great keeper in the fridge, for up to two months. I’m giving directions to customize in case you like more tart or more sweet. All the work is done in a flash and all you have to do is gather up more spring ingredients for a colorful, crunchy salad.

Strawberry Vinaigrette

recipe by Michele Humlan, The Good Eats Company

makes about 1 ½ cups

ingredients

1 cup strawberries, cut coarsely and not packed
pinches of fine sea salt and finely ground white pepper
generous teaspoon creamy Dijon mustard
one small garlic clove, zested on microplane zester
¼ cup (or more – see note) white balsamic vinegar
½ cup neutral oil like canola or grapeseed
optional (if berries are not sweet or if you like sweet) – honey

directions

1. Add strawberries, salt, pepper, mustard, garlic and vinegar to beaker attachment of stick blender, or to other blending device like mini chop.
2. Blend until smooth.
3. Add oil and blend again until smooth.
4. Customizations : if you like more tart, add 1 tablespoon more of white balsamic vinegar; if you like sweet, or if the berries themselves are not very sweet, add 1-2 teaspoons honey.
5. Blend again after additions if using.
6. Store vinaigrette in glass container in refrigerator up to 2 months.