Each week, I pick up my bag of organic produce from our nearby healthy eatery and find renewed inspiration to mix up some fresh picked greens with my homemade salad dressing. I love that my produce is local and sustainably grown and that the ingredients in my salad dressing are natural. I’m not a purist, but, I do appreciate healthy food that doesn’t require learning ingredient names with a dictionary.

Making your own dressing is simple and fun to personalize. You can almost never mess it up, even if you don’t use a measuring spoon. Mix it in a cruet or use any small sealed container to shake it up one last time before adding to your salad.

The following is one of my favorite dressing recipes that I keep on hand for the summer.It’s delicious over chopped greens, spinach, or sliced cucumbers. Or, for a satisfying summer dinner, I add cooked chicken, almonds, green onions, and Chinese noodles.

Asian Sesame Dressing
¼ cup seasoned rice vinegar
¼ cup vegetable oil
2 Tbsp sugar
2 tsp sesame oil
¼ tsp kosher salt
½ tsp black pepper

Shake well and refrigerate until ready to serve.

My Sweet and Tangy Sour Cream Dressing, below, has been called addictive by a few of my friends. It’s great tossed in fresh broccoli, a few bacon bits, and sunflower seeds.
I also like it over cubed, smoked turkey breast with chopped celery, red grapes and walnuts. Be creative, I really don’t think you can go wrong using it on any salad!

Sweet and Tangy Sour Cream Dressing
¼ cup light sour cream
¼ cup light mayonnaise
2 Tbsp Seasoned rice vinegar
2 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp kosher salt
½ tsp black pepper

Whisk until smooth, refrigerate until ready to serve.

Want to learn more about making your own vinaigrettes? Check out these articles on fullcircle.com and allreceipes.com.

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Stephanie Allen is Co-founder and President of Dream Dinners and a New York Times best-selling co-author of The Hour that Matters Most. Naturally a visionary and optimist, Stephanie hopes to inspire America through her nurturing voice of encouragement, assuring families… “You’re doing a great job!”