Heather's Special Walnut Oil Salad Dressing

HeatherFeather's Note:

I rarely use bottled salad dressings, as I tend to prefer homemade versions much more. This is my hands down favorite. It is easy to throw together and is so flavorful. This only makes enough for a few dinner salads - only make as much as you need for one meal, as this only keeps maybe a day. Walnut oil and shallots are the two key ingredients here - you can sub any sweet onion for the shallots, but the walnut oil is what gives this its unique flavor. I may vary what types of lettuces and veggies go into a dinner salad, but if I am using this dressing, I always add some crumbled mild feta cheese to the veggies. Walnut oil can be found in bigger grocery store with other flavored oils or in gourmet markets. Walnut oil needs to be kept in the fridge as it spoils quickly at room temp (but lasts ages in the fridge). People have been asking for this one for a while, and yesterday I finally made this with a pen & paper by my side to carefully measure out the ingredients. This will very lightly dress 4 small dinner salads or 2 much larger ones. Enjoy! NOTE: Walnut oil is an extra virgin olive oil infused with the flavor of walnut and has a unique nutty flavor. You may use other nut flavored oils with good results (like hazelnut or macadamia), but just be sure the oil is infused with nut flavor. Something like peanut oil will not work as a substitute for the walnut oil.

• Total Time: 5 mins
• Prep Time: 5 mins
• Cook Time: 0 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 2

• 1 tablespoon seasoned rice wine vinegar or 1 tablespoon sherry wine vinegar
• 1 ½ teaspoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 -2 teaspoon minced shallots or 1 -2 teaspoon other sweet onion , approximately
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• salt , to taste (about 4 shakes)
• fresh ground black pepper , to taste (about 10 grinds)
• 2 tablespoons canola oil (not olive) or 2 tablespoons other plain flavored oil (not olive)
• 2 teaspoons walnut flavored olive oil (or other nut flavored infused oil)

Additional ingredients

• mixed lettuce greens
• assorted fresh vegetable , of choice
• plain mild feta cheese , crumbled

Directions:

1. Mix all dressing ingredients together (except feta and other salad ingredients) in a mini food processor (or using an immersion stick blender) until creamy in appearance.
2. Drizzle over salad- this doesn't make lots, but is very flavorful; a little goes a long way.
3. Once the salad is dressed, crumble the feta over the salad.

Reviews

[Barb Gertz]

Yummy salad dressing, love the walnut oil. What a good flavor. I doubled the recipe as DH loves to drown his salad. Served it with Baby greens, avocado,mango and feta cheese. Thanks for the tip on keeping the walnut oil in the refridge. Thanks Heather for posting this yummy salad dressing recipe.

[Vino p.o. prn]

Loved this!! Added some mandarin orange slices for added sweetness!! Thanks!

[Missy Wombat]

Well I did substitute the walnut oil but with macadamia oil assuming [rightly or wrongly] that it would be a similar swap. Used flaxseed for the other oil. Otherwise I kept the recipe as is. And yeah, it is rather yummy on the feta. 5 star recipe with macadamia oil.