Salad dressing

A salad dressing is a sauce for salads. Used on almost all leafy salads, salad dressings may also be used in the making of bean salads, noodle or pasta salads and antipasti, and some potato salads.

Salad dressings can be poured over a salad, added or tossed with the ingredients, offered on the side or served as a dip.

Types

In Western culture, there are two basic types of salad dressing:

• Vinaigrettes based on a mix of olive or salad oil and vinegar and flavored with herbs, spices, salt, pepper, sugar, and other ingredients such as poppy seeds or ground Parmesan cheese
• Creamy dressings, mostly based on mayonnaise or fermented milk products, such as yogurt, sour cream, or buttermilk.

In the United States, buttermilk-based ranch dressing is the most popular, with vinaigrettes and Caesar-style dressing following close behind.