Best Balsamic Vinaigrette Recipe

January 14, 2019

This amazingly rich and creamy Balsamic Vinaigrette is the best ever! The key is blending it in the blender for velvety smoothness. Your salads will never be the same!

Jeff and I have salad preeeeeetty much every night. And I have this balsamic vinaigrette recipe of EPIC proportions to thank for it!

We legit crave this salad. Who craves salad?! YOU do. I DO! We ALL do after laying mouth on this godsend of a salad dressing. Seriously, your life will never be the same.

I posted how I make this balsamic vinaigrette on my Instagram stories and so many of you went on to make it! That made my heart sing. A bunch of you asked for the exact recipe, which I didn’t have until this very moment. Truth be told, I’d never measured anything for this dressing before. I just pour a bunch of olive oil in the Nutribullet cup, add a bit less balsamic vinegar, a splash of water, maple syrup, Dijon, a clove of garlic, and a hefty pinch of kosher salt and pepper. It’s second nature to me!

Now listen here. Blending this balsamic vinaigrette is an absolute MUST. It emulsifies everything and makes the dressing thick and creamy and velvety smooth in a way that mixing it by hand surely would not.

Now let’s talk balsamic vinegar for a second. Quality is key! If you put good things in, you’ll get good things out. A lot of “balsamic vinegars” aren’t actually balsamic at all and contain caramel color and sweeteners to make up for it. Avoid those at all cost! Look for aged balsamic vinegar of Modena, meaning it has matured in wood barrels for at least three years. The bottle should have the yellow and blue I.G.P stamp, a certification guaranteeing it’s made from grape varietals typical of Modena, Italy.

Aged balsamic vinegar of Modena is made from wine vinegar and concentrated Trebbiano grape must, i.e. crushed whole grapes with skins, seeds, and stems. The dark brown color we all know and love comes from aging the vinegar in wood casks. When the vinegar hasn’t been aged for long, companies will add caramel color to mimic the deep, rich color of true aged balsamic vinegar. While the color will be the same, clearly the flavor won’t be. Balsamic vinegar contains naturally occurring sulfates, but none should be added.

Moral of the story: read the ingredients and if you see caramel color, keep looking. Lucky for us, Costco conveniently sells my favorite balsamic vinegar and it comes in a huge bottle, which I love. I also get our organic extra virgin olive oil there for a great price.

Now lettuce talk about lettuce. When I’m making our daily salad, I like to use a variety of organic red or green leaf lettuce versus spinach or romaine because it’s such a soft green. I buy a couple of heads of leaf lettuce each week. When I get home from the store, I wash them in our handy dandy salad spinner (another impulse buy at Costco that I now use every day) and keep the chopped greens in a glass Pyrex in the fridge for easy salading.

To make the salad, I simply fill a mixing bowl with greens (sometimes we’ll add chopped veggies, cheese, apples, etc), drizzle on the balsamic vinaigrette, and then season it with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. I use tongs to toss everything together until every piece of lettuce is coated in luscious balsamic vinaigrette.

If you make this recipe, be sure to leave a comment/star rating letting me know! I can’t wait to change your leafy green LIIIIIIIIFE.