Lemon Vinaigrette, the Kitchen Staple You Will Use All Year

Lemon Vinaigrette is the sweet, savory, and delicious answer to "what can I put on this salad or bowl to make me want to shovel it with a spoon?" With only five ingredients, it's also super fast and easy to make. Shall we?

Lemon Vinaigrette is in the class of dressings we call Drinkable Dressings™, the kind that are so good, you just want to drink it straight from the bottle or jar. They have to have the perfect pourable texture not too gloopy, and not be too sticky sweet. Lemon Vinaigrette is exactly all of that.

This recipe for Lemon Vinaigrette is:

• dairy-free
• gluten-free
• refined sugar-free
• plant-based/vegan

What Ingredients You Need for Lemon Vinaigrette

Lemon Vinaigrette has only FIVE ingredients, and the recipe pretty flexible in terms of customizing. For this recipe, you will need:

• lemons, for both zest and juice
• garlic
• avocado oil
• Dijon mustard
• sea salt and optional black pepper.

As with most dressings and sauces, the recipe is totally flexible! Adjust amounts according to your personal taste preference.

How Much Zest and Juice Comes from 1 Lemon?

For this recipe, grab 1 very large or 2 small/medium lemons to get the amount of zest and juice you need.

How much lemon juice and zest come from one lemon? On average, one large, very juicy lemon yields:

• 2 teaspoon of lemon zest and
• 4 tablespoons (¼ cup) of lemon juice.

So for this recipe, plan to use 2 lemons, but grab an extra one or two just in case. You can never have too many lemons laying around your kitchen!

How to Get the Most Lemon Zest and Juice  Zest 1 whole lemon first on a microplane grater. Your lemon will soften a little in your hands as you're grating. Roll the zested lemon on a countertop with some pressure to "loosen the juice" inside. Cut the lemon in half, then squeeze for juice. This way will help you get the most zest and juice from your lemons. No waste!

Additional Ingredients Resources and Substitutions

Avocado Oil. Has the mildest, most neutral flavor of the non-seed oils. This is the brand I prefer. This brand is good, too. Just look for an avocado oil that is cold-pressed, steam-refined, or expeller-pressed. If you want to use olive oil, try to use one that is "light," meaning flavor, not calories or fat.

Dijon Mustard. This Dijon mustard brand has never failed me. Because the amount is fairly small, use whatever mustard you have. The mustard is obviously one of the predominant flavors, but more importantly, emulsifies the rest of the ingredients into one homogenous mixture.

Salt and Black Pepper. Salt is an obvious and ubiquitous ingredient. I use this Kosher salt. Black pepper, on the other hand, is absent from this dressing recipe, and most other dressing recipes on this site. I like to treat black pepper as an optional table condiment that people can add to their final dish if they want, rather than an automatic, somewhat mindless, addition during cooking to a recipe.

Best Kind of Salads for Lemon Vinaigrette

Use Lemon Vinaigrette as a go-to dressing for any salad from lettuces to sturdier greens and vegetables like kale and roasted vegetables. Lemon-based dressings are especially perfect for a salad with fruit in it. The natural sweet-tartness of lemon juice is a good counterbalance to sweet, ripe fruit like berries, melons, anything!

Here are the best versions:

• Blueberry Salad with Avocado and Feta
• Strawberry Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette
• Peach Salad with Hot Honey Balsamic sweet and spicy
• Fig Arugula Salad late summer never tasted so good
• Harvest Salad with Apples and Walnuts the ultimate fall salad
• Arugula Pear Salad perfect for an elegant dinner
• Persimmon Burrata Salad an Autumnal take on a Caprese

How Else to Use Lemon Vinaigrette

Drizzle over grain bowls. Even though I use Lemon Vinaigrette year-round, I make a special effort to prep it weekly in the Spring and Summer because, well, it just matches the season. I do, of course, say this about every season. More importantly though, once Summer, vacation travel, and the lazy days of heatwaves set it, Lemon Vinaigrette is a MUST-HAVE in your refrigerator. It will make it easier to throw together a filling salad or grain bowl for a quick meal.

As a marinade or side sauce. Lemon Vinaigrette is the perfect flavor combination for salmon. Spoon Lemon Vinaigrette over grilled or pan-seared salmon on the plate, or serve alongside. You can also brush salmon before cooking with Lemon Vinaigrette, let it marinate in the refrigerator up to a couple of hours, then grill or roast in the oven.

FAQs

Food for Afterthoughts

I made a Feta Cheese Souffles with Walnuts, Dates, and Mixed Greens with Lemon Vinaigrette, even though souffles are considered "baking."

And I barely made it out of the kitchen with any dignity at all.

I didn't even have enough ramekins because somewhere along the way, potlucks and such have dispersed them all over LA (filled with things wholly unrelated to souffles, like hummus). Those got a slippery, buttery rub-down and a dusting of ground walnuts. That's a little idea I've shamelessly stolen from Gourmet magazine. In fact, I'm also about to admit that I snuck the tip of freezing the ramekins for a few minutes. I have no idea what that does, but I trust Alton.

Feta > Chedda

Melting butter, adding flour, and making it all gurgly and bubbly - that's easy. Now I had to just trust my instinct. Would warm buttermilk work? I don't know enough about food chemistry to know if the acid in buttermilk or the little golden butter balls would have an adverse effect on the fussy little chemistry that is a souffle. We'd just have to wait and see.

Cheese is not unusual for a souffle, but I've only ever seen Cheddar, blue, and maybe even something as wild as gruyere. I added feta and just prayed that it would melt in. It did, sort of - a little grainy, but it's feta. That alone makes up for the texture.

The hardest part for me in any recipe is eggs. Slimy soft, glistening golden egg yolks go for a dip and whip in the cheese, and the whites get furiously beaten into submission. Another sneaky little swipe on my part from Joy of Cooking - add one or two more egg whites than yolks and the souffles will rise higher. Another little trick is to build a buttered parchment paper wall up around the ramekin, but what am I? I don't do parchment paper. Unless I'm composing the Gettysburg Address or something.

After I put the filled ramekins into the oven, it took every ounce of restraint in my body to resist the temptation of sneaking a potentially fatal peek. I just had to set the timer and wait. Holy smokes. Waiting sure is hard. But not if you're kept busy slicing dates, toasting walnuts, and making lemon vinaigrette. Every once in a while, I would stop what I was doing, and look longingly at the oven door. Then I'd catch the evil green kitchen timer ticking down in disapproval. Dates. Walnuts. Lemon. It was tough to stay focused.

Soufflé All Day

But after an eternity which was only really 19 minutes, I opened the door every so softly, ever so gently, and there they were, puffed and golden. I couldn't believe it. Really? I made them! I wanted to scream, but I didn't. But I wanted to, really. Something told me to hold it in; to wait. It would get better. As we moved it all to the table, their tenuous trembling told me that if we didn't work fast, we'd lose the moment forever.

I took a fork and first tickled the soft and tenuous walnut sprinkled top. The fork pierced deep into the souffle, which made first made the faintest of feta sighs. And then we just let loose. The edges were somewhat crunchy and somewhat chewy with the ground walnuts. Next time, maybe toasting the ground walnuts for the ramekin would be better. The souffle was soft and giving, and had the subtle bite of buttermilk and the sharpness of feta. Rich, yet light. Naughty, but heavenly.

Every so often I'd break up the rhythm with sweet dates, toasted walnuts, and feisty greens (no prissy little spring mix here) properly dressed up in honey lemon vinaigrette. Salty, sweet and sour, every tastebud stimulated. Delicious delicious bite after bite!

Okay, so it wasn't quite that uh, orgasmic? But don't we all embellish just a little?

Besides, this souffle was my first time.

Feta Cheese Soufflé with Walnut, Dates and Mixed Greens in Lemon Vinaigrette

butter for greasing ramekins
¼ cup finely ground walnuts

1 cup milk
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
¼ teaspoon salt
4 egg yolks, at room temperature, and broken
½ cup crumbled feta cheese
5 egg whites, at room temperature (what you do with that last egg yolk is up to you - maybe you can make mayonnaise!)

Feta Cheese Soufflé Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Butter the entire inside of 4 8-ounce ramekins and dust with ground walnuts. Tap out excess ground walnuts and place ramekins upside down (so as not to collect weird bits) in freezer.

In a small saucepan, heat milk, but do not let boil. Keep warm.

In medium saucepan on medium-low heat, melt butter until bubbling. Add flour and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, whisking constantly. Whisk in the warm milk, add salt, and continue cooking for another 3-4 minutes while continuing to whisk. Whisk in egg yolks one at a time to make sure they're fully incorporated. Stir in feta cheese as you remove saucepan from heat. Pour into a large bowl and set aside. This is the "soufflé base."

Take ramekins out of the freezer and place on baking sheet.

In a separate mixing bowl, whip egg whites to medium peaks.

Fold about ⅓ of the egg whites into the soufflé base, then repeat with remaining egg whites, folding gently until completely incorporated, but without overmixing (ok, paradox). Divide the soufflé mixture among the ramekins.

Bake until soufflés are risen and golden brown on top, about 18-20 minutes.

(Most recipes instruct you to leave the oven door closed the entire bake time because the souffles have performance anxiety or something, but if you do not have a "window" on your oven, then what the fuck are you supposed to do? Just guess? At about 18 minutes, take a gentle peek. That's what I did.)

Walnuts, Dates and Mixed Greens in Honey Lemon Vinaigrette Directions:

In a small bowl, whisk together Lemon Vinaigrette. Season to taste with salt and pepper. If the vinaigrette is "too strong," add a few teaspoons of plain water.

Toss greens with vinaigrette. Divide among 4 plates, and top with toasted walnuts and dates.