My favorite salad dressing of all time is red wine vinaigrette. My mom would buy it growing up and I’d have salads as a snack just so I could drown my salad in the tangy red dressing. It was the sweet and tangy flavors of the dressing that kept me coming back for more. While I loved the store bought the variety, I always wondered what those weird white bits were floating around. Quite frankly, they freak me out now. What are those thing?? Either way there’s no comparison to the way homemade dressing tastes as oppose to store bought. Real talk, this salad really is just a vehicle for the red wine vinaigrette. What can I say, I love this salad dressing! I guarantee you have all the ingredients also, so you can make it now if you want.
A great salad starts with greens. I prefer the triple washed box from my supermarket or the organic purple lettuce from the farmer’s market. Since the farmer’s market is open again I’ve been buying the purple lettuce by the bag full. To get ready for bathing suit season I’ve also been using it to make taco’s (instead of using tortilla’s) and as a “bun” for veggie burgers. Delish.
Do you use a knife and chopping board to cut your lettuce? I’m total lazy bones on this, I just rinse and break apart directly onto a paper towel. Tap it dry and right on my plate it goes. I like to line up all my salad ingredients so when I put it together it’s like bada-bing bada-boom.
P.S. the second best part of this salad are the walnuts. I’m in love with walnuts in a salad! Total necessity for me. At least for now, until the big bag of walnuts in my fridge is empty.
Get all your salad ingredients together, then stand back and look at how beautiful it is. Feel free to dance at this point because it only took you about 30 seconds and you’re about to eat in about another 10 seconds. Go grab an empty jar, put all the vinaigrette ingredients in there and shake it up.
Make sure you taste the dressing before you serve it, just in case you want it a little less tart. I like my dressing tart so I use only 1 tbsp of olive oil but my husband prefers a little less tang so he goes for the full 1 1.5 tbsp. Either way it’s delicious and you can keep the sealed jar on the counter for a while. So make it once and you can have it all the time!
Ingredients
- 2 cups salad greens
- 1/4 cup cooked beets, chopped
- 1 tbsp dried cranberries
- 1 tbsp chopped walnuts
- 1/4 cup red wine vinaigrette
- 1 - 1.5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tbsp agave
- 1 tsp dijon mustard
- 1/8 tsp garlic powder
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Put together all ingredients for the salad.
- In a small bowl, whisk all ingredients for the salad dressing. You can also use a clean jar for the dressing, put on the lid and just shake it up!
- Dress your salad with enough dressing to your liking and enjoy.
- Store remaining dressing in an air tight container.
Healthy living blogger, fitness lover, recipe developer, novice food photographer, and lover of all things fun!
