Vinaigrette and variations

I have salad for lunch most days so I’ve come up with a few vinaigrette salad dressing variations to keep it interesting. I just start with the basic recipe (which is plenty good on its own) and add one or more things to it. You might want to adjust the amounts of mustard and honey to taste. For the Greek and cilantro-lime, juice the lemon or limes, then add vinegar to the juice to make 1/2 cup (and use this instead of the 1/2 cup of vinegar in the basic recipe).

The basic recipe:

3/4 cup canola oil

1/2 cup white balsamic vinegar

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/2 teaspoon honey

1/2 teaspoon salt

black pepper to taste

Put everything in a salad dressing container and shake, whisk, or blend to combine.

Variations:

ranch: add 1 tsp ranch spice mix

curry: add 1/2 tsp curry powder

Italian: add 1/2 tsp Italian spice mix

tomato-basil: add 1 T tomato paste, 1 T finely minced fresh basil

fresh herb: add 1-2 T various finely minced fresh herbs

Greek: juice of 1 lemon + vinegar, 1/2 tsp dried oregano, 1/2 tsp dried dill

cilantro-lime: juice of 2 limes + vinegar, 1 T finely minced fresh cilantro