Everyday Vinaigrette

Name: Everyday Vinaigrette
Prep time: 6 min
Total time: 11 min
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients: 90 ml extra virgin olive oil; 30 ml red wine vinegar; 1 tsp Dijon mustard; 1 small shallot, very finely chopped; 1 tsp runny honey; 2 g fine sea salt; 1 g black peppercorns, finely ground

Vinaigrette

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A mustard-emulsified dressing built on three parts oil to one part acid, a ratio worth memorising so you never need the recipe again.

Prep: 6 min
Resting: 5 min
Total: 11 min
Serves: 6
Revisions: 6

Everyday Vinaigrette — shot from directly overhead: a mustard-emulsified dressing built on three parts oil to one part acid

Allergens

Mustard
Sulphites

Named from the ingredients as written, including those carried in from sub-recipes. This is not a guarantee — check the labels on what you actually buy, and note that a product’s recipe can change.

Method

Put the chopped shallot in a small bowl with the red wine vinegar.
Leave it for 5 minutes, which takes the raw heat out of the shallot and seasons the vinegar with it.
Learn the ratio rather than the numbers: three parts oil to one part acid. Here that is 90ml of oil to 30ml of vinegar, but it holds at any scale, and lemon juice, cider vinegar or sherry vinegar all work in place of the red wine vinegar.
Whisk the mustard, honey, the 2g of fine salt and the ground peppercorns into the vinegar until the salt has dissolved.
Add the olive oil a few drops at a time to begin with, whisking constantly.
Do not tip the oil in all at once. Mustard holds the oil in suspension only if the drops arrive slowly enough to be broken up and coated as they go in — poured in a stream, the oil stays as one mass and the dressing splits back into two layers within seconds.
Speed up to a thin trickle once the mixture has thickened and turned opaque, about a third of the way through the oil.
Keep whisking until all the oil is in and the dressing is pale, glossy and thick enough to hold a coat on the back of a spoon.
Taste it on a leaf rather than off a spoon. Neat vinaigrette always tastes too sharp; only the leaf tells you whether it is balanced.
Correct it with a little more salt, or a few more drops of oil if it bites.
Keep it in a jar in the fridge for up to a week. It makes about 150ml, enough to dress a large salad for six.
Use it on more than leaves. The lemony chickpea and herb salad in this collection takes it in place of its own dressing, though that one is deliberately sharper because warm chickpeas drink so much of it.
Shake it hard before each use. Cold separates the dressing and turns the olive oil cloudy and semi-solid, and both come back within a few minutes at room temperature.

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What to expect

Taste: Sharp first and then round, and the balance between those two is the whole thing. The vinegar arrives immediately — 30ml is a real quantity of acid and a vinaigrette tasted alone always seems too sour, which is why the recipe says to taste it on a leaf. Mustard brings its own pungency, a mustardy heat that is quite different from chilli and sits at the front of the mouth. The shallot, softened by its five minutes, is sweet and mild rather than harsh. Honey is barely detectable as sweetness and is doing balance rather than flavour. Olive oil is the largest ingredient and the one people forget to taste — a good extra virgin is fruity, grassy and genuinely bitter at the back of the throat, and it is a third of what you taste. Salt matters enormously and needs to be dissolved before the oil goes in, because it will not dissolve afterwards.
Aroma: Vinegar first and sharply, then mustard, then olive oil, which is more aromatic than most people credit — a fresh extra virgin smells of cut grass and green tomato. The shallot contributes almost nothing once it has macerated, which is the sign it has done what it was supposed to.
Texture: Thick and coating, closer to single cream than to oil. That thickness is what allows a small amount to dress a large bowl of leaves, and it is the practical reason for emulsifying at all — split dressing pools at the bottom and coats nothing.
Sound: Only the whisk, and the sound changes as the emulsion forms: from a thin liquid slosh to a heavier, quieter drag as it thickens. That change is a useful cue if you are not looking at it.
How the flavour moves: Acid first and hard. Then mustard heat at the front of the mouth, then the oil spreading across the whole palate and softening it. The finish is olive oil bitterness and a lingering sharpness. On a leaf the arc is much gentler, which is exactly why tasting it neat misleads.
Serve it: Room temperature. A cold dressing on cold leaves tastes flat, and olive oil below about 7°C begins to solidify — the waxy solids that form are harmless and reverse, and they make a fridge-cold vinaigrette look curdled.
Goes with: Leaves, obviously, and the more bitter the better — chicory, radicchio, frisée, rocket. Warm potatoes, which absorb it. Roasted vegetables. Green beans. Lentils and chickpeas, which want it sharper. Grilled fish. It is the most versatile thing in this collection and there is very little it does not improve.

Cook's notes

Difficulty: Easy, with one thing that has to be done properly. An emulsion is a physical process rather than a matter of mixing hard, and pouring the oil in fast defeats it no matter how vigorously you whisk afterwards.
Cost: Very low, and it is a fraction of the price of any bottled dressing.
Equipment: A small bowl and a whisk, or a jar with a lid — see the note under substitutions, because shaking in a jar works and works differently.
When to make it: Constantly. Make a jar on Sunday and use it all week.
Best season: None.
You know it is done when: The dressing turns from translucent to opaque and from thin to thick, and the change happens about a third of the way through the oil. That is the emulsion forming and it is unmistakable once you have seen it. It should hold a coat on the back of a spoon.
And it feels like: Thick enough to cling to a leaf rather than run off it. If it slides straight off, it is either too thin or it has split.
Food safety: Nothing to manage. Note that a vinaigrette containing raw garlic and stored in oil should be kept refrigerated and used within days rather than left at room temperature — this recipe uses shallot rather than garlic and does not raise the same question.
Where it goes wrong: Pouring the oil in all at once, which is the fault — mustard can only hold droplets that were droplets when they arrived, and a single stream of oil stays a single mass. Not dissolving the salt before the oil goes in, after which it never will. Tasting it neat and then adding more oil to correct a sharpness that would have been fine on a leaf. Skipping the shallot's five minutes and getting a harsh dressing. And over-dressing the salad, which is the most common fault of all.
If it does go wrong: Split into two layers: start again in a clean bowl with a fresh teaspoon of mustard, and whisk the split dressing into it a few drops at a time — the same rescue as for mayonnaise, and it works. Too sharp: a few more drops of oil, or a little more honey. Flat: salt. Harsh and oniony: the shallot did not get its five minutes. Solid and cloudy from the fridge: it is fine, and twenty minutes at room temperature and a hard shake fixes it.
Making it ahead: Always. A week in the fridge, and it is a dressing designed to live in a jar.
Keeping it: A week in a jar in the fridge. It separates and goes cloudy, both of which reverse within a few minutes at room temperature and a hard shake.
Reheating: Not applicable.
Freezing: No.
Leftovers: It is designed to be a leftover. A jar in the fridge is one of the more useful things a kitchen can have, and it goes on far more than leaves — warm potatoes, roasted vegetables, beans, grains, grilled fish.
Scaling it: Perfectly, because it is a ratio. Three of oil to one of acid at any volume you like.
Substitutions: This is the whole point of learning the ratio. Any acid works at 30ml — red or white wine vinegar, cider, sherry, lemon juice, or a mixture. Any oil works at 90ml, and the character of the dressing changes completely with it: extra virgin olive is peppery and assertive, rapeseed is grassy and mild, walnut and hazelnut are rich and suit bitter leaves. Dijon can be replaced by a teaspoon of egg yolk for a much more stable emulsion, at which point you are most of the way to a mayonnaise.
Dietary swaps: Vegetarian and dairy-free and nut-free and gluten-free as written. Vegan if the honey is replaced with maple syrup or a pinch of sugar. Contains mustard and sulphites, both declared and both easy to overlook in a dressing.
Shopping for it: A good extra virgin olive oil, a real red wine vinegar, and proper Dijon mustard rather than a wholegrain, which will not emulsify as well because much of the mucilage is still inside intact seeds.
Keeping the cost down: It costs a fraction of any bottled dressing and takes six minutes, which is the whole argument. Buy a decent but not extravagant extra virgin olive oil for this — it is uncooked, so quality shows, but a very expensive single-estate oil is wasted under vinegar.
Sustainability: Making it rather than buying it avoids a bottle, and it uses no refrigerated or perishable ingredients. Unremarkable but positive.
Nutrition: Around 140 calories a serving of a tablespoon and a half, almost all of it olive oil — which is monounsaturated fat and is the largest single reason a Mediterranean diet looks good in nutritional studies. Its real nutritional job is making vegetables get eaten.
Worth it?: Worth it, and it is the single highest-return recipe on this site. Six minutes produces a week of dressing at a fraction of the cost of a bottle, it is better than any of them, and the ratio behind it — three to one, emulsified with mustard — is one of about five things worth memorising in a kitchen. Learn it once.

Where it comes from

Origin: France.
Also called: Vinaigrette. The name is a diminutive of vinaigre, vinegar, which itself is vin aigre — sour wine.
Said out loud: vee-nay-GRET.
What the name means: Little vinegar. Which is slightly misleading, since three quarters of it is oil.
History: There is no invention story and it would be absurd to construct one. What is worth understanding is the physics, because it explains every instruction in the recipe. Oil and water do not mix; an emulsion is a suspension of tiny droplets of one in the other, held apart by an emulsifier. Mustard is the emulsifier here — its ground seed coat contains mucilage that coats oil droplets and stops them merging — and it is why a spoonful of Dijon turns two things that separate into one thing that does not, for a while. A vinaigrette is a temporary emulsion and will separate in a matter of hours; a mayonnaise, made with egg yolk, is a stable one and will not. That is the entire difference between them.
Why it matters: In France the salad course after the main is a fixture and this is what dresses it. Its wider significance is that it is the standard example of an emulsion in cookery teaching, and understanding it here means understanding mayonnaise, hollandaise and beurre blanc afterwards.
When it is eaten: Every day.
The traditional way: Whisking the oil in slowly. There is a competing method — putting everything in a jar and shaking it hard — and it genuinely works: violent agitation breaks the oil into droplets just as whisking does. It produces a slightly coarser and less stable emulsion and it is what most French households actually do.
How it changed: The ratio has moved. Older French recipes run four or even five parts oil to one of acid; three to one is the modern standard and two to one is common in restaurants now, as tastes have moved sharper. Balsamic vinegar's arrival in the 1980s changed a great many dressings and not for the better, since a sweet syrupy vinegar unbalances the ratio.
Regional variations: Every oil and every acid makes a different dressing and the regional versions follow local produce — walnut oil in the Périgord, hazelnut in the south-west, sherry vinegar in Spain, lemon almost everywhere around the Mediterranean.
How this version differs: It leads with the ratio rather than the quantities, macerates the shallot, and explains why the oil goes in slowly. All three are standard practice and are usually left unstated.
Sources and credit: None. Traditional and unauthored.

Used in 3 recipes

Where this turns up as an ingredient.

Categories

Cuisines

French

Courses & dish types

Sauces

Diets

Vegetarian

Time & effort

15 minutes 30 minutes

Other

Basics

What to expect

Taste

Sharp first and then round, and the balance between those two is the whole thing. The vinegar arrives immediately — 30ml is a real quantity of acid and a vinaigrette tasted alone always seems too sour, which is why the recipe says to taste it on a leaf. Mustard brings its own pungency, a mustardy heat that is quite different from chilli and sits at the front of the mouth. The shallot, softened by its five minutes, is sweet and mild rather than harsh. Honey is barely detectable as sweetness and is doing balance rather than flavour. Olive oil is the largest ingredient and the one people forget to taste — a good extra virgin is fruity, grassy and genuinely bitter at the back of the throat, and it is a third of what you taste. Salt matters enormously and needs to be dissolved before the oil goes in, because it will not dissolve afterwards.

Aroma

Vinegar first and sharply, then mustard, then olive oil, which is more aromatic than most people credit — a fresh extra virgin smells of cut grass and green tomato. The shallot contributes almost nothing once it has macerated, which is the sign it has done what it was supposed to.

Texture

Thick and coating, closer to single cream than to oil. That thickness is what allows a small amount to dress a large bowl of leaves, and it is the practical reason for emulsifying at all — split dressing pools at the bottom and coats nothing.

Sound

Only the whisk, and the sound changes as the emulsion forms: from a thin liquid slosh to a heavier, quieter drag as it thickens. That change is a useful cue if you are not looking at it.

How the flavour moves

Acid first and hard. Then mustard heat at the front of the mouth, then the oil spreading across the whole palate and softening it. The finish is olive oil bitterness and a lingering sharpness. On a leaf the arc is much gentler, which is exactly why tasting it neat misleads.

Serve it

Room temperature. A cold dressing on cold leaves tastes flat, and olive oil below about 7°C begins to solidify — the waxy solids that form are harmless and reverse, and they make a fridge-cold vinaigrette look curdled.

Goes with

Leaves, obviously, and the more bitter the better — chicory, radicchio, frisée, rocket. Warm potatoes, which absorb it. Roasted vegetables. Green beans. Lentils and chickpeas, which want it sharper. Grilled fish. It is the most versatile thing in this collection and there is very little it does not improve.

Cook's notes

Difficulty

Easy, with one thing that has to be done properly. An emulsion is a physical process rather than a matter of mixing hard, and pouring the oil in fast defeats it no matter how vigorously you whisk afterwards.

Cost

Very low, and it is a fraction of the price of any bottled dressing.

Equipment

A small bowl and a whisk, or a jar with a lid — see the note under substitutions, because shaking in a jar works and works differently.

When to make it

Constantly. Make a jar on Sunday and use it all week.

Best season

None.

You know it is done when

The dressing turns from translucent to opaque and from thin to thick, and the change happens about a third of the way through the oil. That is the emulsion forming and it is unmistakable once you have seen it. It should hold a coat on the back of a spoon.

And it feels like

Thick enough to cling to a leaf rather than run off it. If it slides straight off, it is either too thin or it has split.

Food safety

Nothing to manage. Note that a vinaigrette containing raw garlic and stored in oil should be kept refrigerated and used within days rather than left at room temperature — this recipe uses shallot rather than garlic and does not raise the same question.

Where it goes wrong

Pouring the oil in all at once, which is the fault — mustard can only hold droplets that were droplets when they arrived, and a single stream of oil stays a single mass. Not dissolving the salt before the oil goes in, after which it never will. Tasting it neat and then adding more oil to correct a sharpness that would have been fine on a leaf. Skipping the shallot's five minutes and getting a harsh dressing. And over-dressing the salad, which is the most common fault of all.

If it does go wrong

Split into two layers: start again in a clean bowl with a fresh teaspoon of mustard, and whisk the split dressing into it a few drops at a time — the same rescue as for mayonnaise, and it works. Too sharp: a few more drops of oil, or a little more honey. Flat: salt. Harsh and oniony: the shallot did not get its five minutes. Solid and cloudy from the fridge: it is fine, and twenty minutes at room temperature and a hard shake fixes it.

Making it ahead

Always. A week in the fridge, and it is a dressing designed to live in a jar.

Keeping it

A week in a jar in the fridge. It separates and goes cloudy, both of which reverse within a few minutes at room temperature and a hard shake.

Reheating

Not applicable.

Freezing

No.

Leftovers

It is designed to be a leftover. A jar in the fridge is one of the more useful things a kitchen can have, and it goes on far more than leaves — warm potatoes, roasted vegetables, beans, grains, grilled fish.

Scaling it

Perfectly, because it is a ratio. Three of oil to one of acid at any volume you like.

Substitutions

This is the whole point of learning the ratio. Any acid works at 30ml — red or white wine vinegar, cider, sherry, lemon juice, or a mixture. Any oil works at 90ml, and the character of the dressing changes completely with it: extra virgin olive is peppery and assertive, rapeseed is grassy and mild, walnut and hazelnut are rich and suit bitter leaves. Dijon can be replaced by a teaspoon of egg yolk for a much more stable emulsion, at which point you are most of the way to a mayonnaise.

Dietary swaps

Vegetarian and dairy-free and nut-free and gluten-free as written. Vegan if the honey is replaced with maple syrup or a pinch of sugar. Contains mustard and sulphites, both declared and both easy to overlook in a dressing.

Shopping for it

A good extra virgin olive oil, a real red wine vinegar, and proper Dijon mustard rather than a wholegrain, which will not emulsify as well because much of the mucilage is still inside intact seeds.

Keeping the cost down

It costs a fraction of any bottled dressing and takes six minutes, which is the whole argument. Buy a decent but not extravagant extra virgin olive oil for this — it is uncooked, so quality shows, but a very expensive single-estate oil is wasted under vinegar.

Sustainability

Making it rather than buying it avoids a bottle, and it uses no refrigerated or perishable ingredients. Unremarkable but positive.

Nutrition

Around 140 calories a serving of a tablespoon and a half, almost all of it olive oil — which is monounsaturated fat and is the largest single reason a Mediterranean diet looks good in nutritional studies. Its real nutritional job is making vegetables get eaten.

Worth it?

Worth it, and it is the single highest-return recipe on this site. Six minutes produces a week of dressing at a fraction of the cost of a bottle, it is better than any of them, and the ratio behind it — three to one, emulsified with mustard — is one of about five things worth memorising in a kitchen. Learn it once.

Where it comes from

Origin

France.

Also called

Vinaigrette. The name is a diminutive of vinaigre, vinegar, which itself is vin aigre — sour wine.

Said out loud

vee-nay-GRET.

What the name means

Little vinegar. Which is slightly misleading, since three quarters of it is oil.

History

There is no invention story and it would be absurd to construct one. What is worth understanding is the physics, because it explains every instruction in the recipe. Oil and water do not mix; an emulsion is a suspension of tiny droplets of one in the other, held apart by an emulsifier. Mustard is the emulsifier here — its ground seed coat contains mucilage that coats oil droplets and stops them merging — and it is why a spoonful of Dijon turns two things that separate into one thing that does not, for a while. A vinaigrette is a temporary emulsion and will separate in a matter of hours; a mayonnaise, made with egg yolk, is a stable one and will not. That is the entire difference between them.

Why it matters

In France the salad course after the main is a fixture and this is what dresses it. Its wider significance is that it is the standard example of an emulsion in cookery teaching, and understanding it here means understanding mayonnaise, hollandaise and beurre blanc afterwards.

When it is eaten

Every day.

The traditional way

Whisking the oil in slowly. There is a competing method — putting everything in a jar and shaking it hard — and it genuinely works: violent agitation breaks the oil into droplets just as whisking does. It produces a slightly coarser and less stable emulsion and it is what most French households actually do.

How it changed

The ratio has moved. Older French recipes run four or even five parts oil to one of acid; three to one is the modern standard and two to one is common in restaurants now, as tastes have moved sharper. Balsamic vinegar's arrival in the 1980s changed a great many dressings and not for the better, since a sweet syrupy vinegar unbalances the ratio.

Regional variations

Every oil and every acid makes a different dressing and the regional versions follow local produce — walnut oil in the Périgord, hazelnut in the south-west, sherry vinegar in Spain, lemon almost everywhere around the Mediterranean.

How this version differs

It leads with the ratio rather than the quantities, macerates the shallot, and explains why the oil goes in slowly. All three are standard practice and are usually left unstated.

Sources and credit

None. Traditional and unauthored.

Everyday Vinaigrette

Allergens

Ingredients

Method

What to expect

Cook's notes

Where it comes from

Used in 3 recipes

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Categories

Everyday Vinaigrette

Allergens

Ingredients

Method

What to expect

Cook's notes

Where it comes from

Used in 3 recipes

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Categories

Allergens

Ingredients

Method

What to expect

Cook's notes

Where it comes from

Related recipes

Used in 3 recipes

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Categories

Allergens

Ingredients

Method

What to expect

Cook's notes

Where it comes from

Related recipes

Used in 3 recipes

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Categories