Spinach Salad with Cranberry Sauce Dressing

On November 28, 2024November 28, 2024 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, saladsLeave a comment

Cranberry sauce goes on so many dishes on the holiday table that it’s always worth making extra. If you have more left over than you anticipated, the recipe I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon converts the sauce into a salad dressing.

I love the tartness of cranberries so much that as a teenager, I would thin cranberry sauce with oil and vinegar to make a personalized salad dressing right at the Thanksgiving table. The dressing and salad recipe in my column simply formalizes the process. So you don’t have to wait for leftovers to enjoy it. If you made Orange-Infused Cranberry Sauce to serve with your feast and have a palate-cleansing salad to accompany the meal, whip up this dressing straightaway.
Learn to make Spinach Salad with Cranberry Sauce Dressing

Green Goddess Salad Dressing

On September 6, 2024September 5, 2024 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, saladsLeave a comment

I’m such a lover of all things pickled and fermented that most of my salad dressings start with vinegar and oil. So when I was asked to create some condiments for a large dinner a few years back, I knew I needed to branch out not just with a creamy choice but also one that would appeal to as many dietary needs as possible: vegan, gluten free, keto friendly, and more. That’s why the salad dressing I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon eschews the original mayonnaise and other dairy-heavy renditions in favor of a dairy-free, avocado-based blend.

Avocados have grown in popularity as a nondairy fat replacement in baked goods—the same way I often replace oil and butter in quick breads with applesauce. I occasionally use avocados in this way, especially when making desserts for vegan friends. But I typically eat avocados sliced fresh, such as on corn tortillas with Crispy Sprouted Lentils, or turn them into Grilled Onion Guacamole. I even have a recipe for pickling them in my pickling cookbook. If you like tangy salads, try the pickled avocado slices in the green goddess dressing.
Learn to make Green Goddess Salad Dressing

Best DIY Salad Dressing

On September 24, 2022November 18, 2023 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn saladsLeave a comment

After the heat of summer sent lettuces bolting, recent cool fall temperatures and rain mean salads are back. If you don’t grow your own salad fixings, you may not have noticed the shift from sweet, tender greens to bitter, coarse leaves. But home gardeners will be well aware of the change and have transitioned from lettuce-based salads to ones featuring heat-tolerant or late-season vegetables.

In a piece for Clean Pates earlier this summer, I shared my technique and ratio for making a collection of salad dressings. Even if you don’t grow salad greens, I’m a firm believer that you should make your own dressings. Among disappearing food traditions, one of the most lamentable is scratch-made salad dressing. As Mark Kurlansky writes in The Food of a Younger Land, “What could better spell the beginning of the end than bottled salad dressing, the manufacture of a product that was so easy to make at home?”

Easy is right: Using a basic ratio, you can make so many dressings. A pinch of this and dab of that completely change a dressing’s flavor. My technique clocks in under 60 seconds, and I can now eyeball the proportions without even dirtying measuring spoons.
Learn to make the Best DIY Salad Dressing

Tomato-Cucumber Salad with Asian-Inspired Dressing

On September 1, 2022November 18, 2023 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, saladsLeave a comment

Tomato season is on. I harvested 45 pounds of heirloom paste and slicing tomatoes in one go earlier this week, and these larger tomatoes already need to be picked again. The cherry tomatoes have been prolific too; bowls of them are currently scattered around my house, waiting to be eaten, frozen, or canned.

As I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, fresh cherry tomatoes and small cucumbers make a delicious salad. Nothing beats the taste of homegrown ones, of course, but local farmers can do the work for you and even a larger tomato and cucumber can be sliced up for a similarly quick, bright dish when they’re in season. Although most people think of a balsamic-based vinaigrette for tomatoes, I love to flavor this pairing with an Asian-inspired dressing—especially if I’m eating it with the recipe I shared in last week’s Flathead Beacon column: Zucchini-Basil Pancakes, one of my favorite was to use zucchini.
Learn to make Tomato-Cucumber Salad with Asian-Inspired Dressing