Creamy Garlic Dressing

I debated whether or not I would post this because it has become one of those recipes that should be in the vault.

Back in December 2019, I broke the rules and participated in a company sponsored offsite while I was on maternity leave. Yes, I was checking my work email when I shouldn’t have, but I didn’t want to come back to thousands of unread messages because that would drive me insane. Though, when I did return, I just selected all and put them in trash. Hopefully, nothing was too important…

Anyway, back to my offsite. We did a cooking class where we made this salad that took pretty much the first half of our offsite. It was super time consuming preparing the different elements. Cutting the lettuce a certain size, flash frying the Brussels sprouts, roasting cauliflower, cutting grapes into thin slices, etc. I think someone even asked when we were going to eat because it took that long!

When it came time to make the dressing, the chef mentioned a Bagna Cauda. I happen to love Bagna Cauda – like A LOT. Garlic, good. Olive oil, good. Anchovies, good. Olives? Yeah, no thanks. The process in which this dressing was made was also very laborious. Maybe the chef was trying to kill time, but making dressing in a mortar and pestle seems a little archaic in a world full of kitchen solutions. When we finally got to eat the salad, I was blown away. The dressing is heavy and rich, AF. But overall, the salad was light and comforting. I was obsessed.

So, a week later, I decided to replicate it with the ingredients I had at home. Lucky for my husband, I didn’t have any anchovy paste (though I have some now…) so he watched the baby and I made us a salad to remember. Two hours later…we finally ate.

CREAMY GARLIC DRESSING

INGREDIENTS (cook time 5 mins, prep time 15-20 mins, yields 2 1/3 cups)

1 cup olive oil – preferably light in color
2/3 cup garlic cloves
3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
2 tsp salt
2 tsp ground black pepper
2 1/2 tbsp sugar or 1/2 cup honey
1 tsp garlic powder

PREPARATION

In a small sauce pot, pour the olive oil and add the garlic. Heat on medium high until it starts to be fragrant and lightly bubbling. Make sure you’re not deep frying the garlic, but softening it. About 7 minutes, then remove from heat and transfer oil and garlic to a heat safe bowl or blender. I normally use the residual oil in the pot to toast up panko bread crumbs because trust me, this topping is a life changer.
Slowly blend the garlic and oil until it’s fully broken down.
Add salt, pepper, sugar, and garlic powder.
While the blender is still on, slowly add the apple cider vinegar. You’ll notice that the consistency will change – should be thick and creamy. You may need to keep adding more ACV if you’re noticing that there’s still oil and it’s separating.
This is the time where you need to taste and season to your liking. You may need to add more salt or pepper or sugar/honey. It really does depend on your preference, so use this recipe as a base.
Use whatever greens and accompaniments you would normally have in a salad and pour this on! One suggestion is to have grapes in your salad with this dressing. It’s so good together.