Greek Yogurt Salad Dressing: Creamy Parmesan and Herb

As you know, I have very specific guidelines for making the Perfect Salad.

1. It must not contain a lot of lettuce, or if it does, the lettuce must be chopped into small pieces

2. The items in the salad should all be approximately the same size

3. There should be a lot of dressing

 

Restaurants like Half Moon or Chopt are great for meeting these standards, but most other restaurants aren’t that great about making good salads. Since I met my husband, I have had to be a bit more strict about my salad habits too because if our dinner salad is too leafy or doesn’t have much dressing, he just doesn’t eat it.

Personally, I love creamy salad dressings, but you won’t catch me eating anything out of a bottle. (Soybean oil anyone?). I wanted to find a way to make a creamy dressing that met all of my Real Food requirements that would also be good enough for Dave to eat it (before this, I’ve really only seen him eat taco salad… which is an art I’ve mastered, if I do say so).

I scored big time on this dressing. He scarfed it down, and without me bringing it up, he mentioned that he’d eat it everyday.

Greek Yogurt Salad Dressing: Creamy Parmesan and Herb

1/2 cup greek yogurt (I prefer the full fat version, and I buy a local brand in California)
1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 grated parmesan cheese
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder (or a clove or two, minced)
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried basil
salt
pepper

Note: You can use whatever herbs you want–I intended to use dill, thyme, etc. as well, but our herb garden has kicked the bucket for the winter (and we neglected it), and I didn’t have many options of the dried versions on hand.

Directions: Put everything into a bowl and mix it well with a fork. You can put this into the blender to make it a bit smoother, but then you have to wash the blender…

Chop your greens with a mezzaluna like this (Just kidding… that one is sexy but it’s too expensive. Buy one like this instead.) or a large knife, and toss the dressing with the greens until they are evenly coated. You can store this dressing in the fridge in an airtight container for several days. It thickens a bit in the fridge, but this is ok, it still works just as well that way. The amount in this recipe should cover about four dinner sized salads. Don’t be stingy!