Revive Your Salads With These 5 Intriguing Dressings

There are two main ways to avoid salad fatigue. The first is obvious: switch out the lettuce . The other involves taking a new approach to the dressing. Luckily, we have plenty of interesting, sometimes slightly out-there dressings (we purée bread into one, for instance) that add bold flavor and textural appeal. Here are five of our favorite dressings you've probably never heard of (with accompanying salad recipes, of course).

Smoky Pepper Dressing

This Romaine with Manchego Salad features a bread-thickened dressing similar to romesco, which is a nutty, garlicky, olive oil-rich sauce from Catalonian. It’s not your average creamy dressing. Extra virgin olive oil, toasted bread, almonds, roasted peppers, vinegar, garlic and spices are blended in the food processor for a rich, robustly aromatic sauce. In addition to salad, this smoky pepper dressing is great on steak, shrimp, or grilled or roasted veggies, so consider making extra. Notably, this dressing is highly customizable: You have room to play with the viscosity of the sauce. Keep the dressing thicker for more clinging power, or add a few tablespoons of water for an easy-to-toss consistency.

Horseradish Dressing

Our creamy horseradish dressing is cool, yet punchy—a simple combination of sour cream, horseradish, lemon juice, salt and pepper. We suggest using the vinegar-prepared variety of horseradish, which usually is kept in the refrigerated section. It has fewer additives and a more pronounced spicy flavor. No special equipment required here—just add all of the ingredients to a bowl and stir until well combined. While we serve it over our Beet Salad—complete with crunchy caraway seed breadcrumbs—this dressing is highly versatile. We also like it with roast beef, pork and salmon.

Pepper Jelly Vinaigrette

That half-consumed pepper jelly in your fridge has been waiting for a chance like this. We use a whopping 1/3 cup of red pepper jelly—thinned out with a bit of vinegar and oil—to make a sweet, tangy dressing with a warming heat. It pairs brilliantly with our shredded Chicken and Bean salad, but is equally at home on a leafy green salad. If you’re inclined towards a bit more heat, substitute your favorite hot sauce for the vinegar measurement.

Coconut-Lime Dressing with Fish Sauce

This dressing offers richness, acidity and umami in a quick flick of the whisk. Full-fat coconut milk, lime juice, fish sauce, a bit of sugar and chopped chilies bring a full spectrum of flavor. We like this dressing with our Thai-inspired Chicken and Cabbage Salad, but try it over grilled meats or fish when you’re in need of a quick and robustly flavored sauce.

Nori Vinaigrette

Roasted seaweed snacks are the trick to making this dressing both convenient and flavorful. There is a recognizable base of oil and vinegar for this vinaigrette, but it’s anything but basic. Mirin adds a sweet tanginess, soy sauce brings salt and umami to the table, and the nori (dried seaweed) adds welcome complexity with savory, nutty notes. To pulverize the seaweed snacks, we recommend using a spice grinder for speed and a fine consistency. We love this dressing tossed with our Eventide Green Salad, a delicate, leafy green salad with a few crunchy pickled veggies scattered in.

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Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

Allie Chantorn Reinmann is a Digital Staff Writer for Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street. She’s a Thai-American chef who earned her diploma for Pastry and Baking Arts at The Institute of Culinary Education and worked professionally for over a decade honing her craft in New York City at places like Balthazar, Bien Cuit, The Chocolate Room, Billy’s Bakery and Whole Foods. Allie took her know-how from the kitchen to the internet, writing about food full-time at Lifehacker for three years and starting her own YouTube channel, ThaiNYbites. You can find her whipping up baked goods for cafés around Brooklyn, building wedding cakes and trying her hand (feet?) at marathon running. She’s working on her debut cookbook and lives in Brooklyn, NY.