Anchovy Vinaigrette Dressing, Will Make You and Your Salad Best Dressed

Anchovy Vinaigrette Dressing is the salty, savory, umami-rich 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?

^{originally published: March 2014, updated January 2025}

Jump to:

• What is Anchovy Vinaigrette?
• What Ingredients You Need for Anchovy Vinaigrette
• What Kind of Anchovies are Best for Dressing?
• Tools and Equipment
• Anchovy Vinaigrette on Tri-Colore Salad
• Anchovy Vinaigrette Dressing Recipe

When I lived within walking distance of Pizzeria Mozza, my then-BF and I ate there at least once, more likely twice, and every once in a while, three times a week. I only recall one time when my salad order was something other than the Tri-Colore Salad which, with its Anchovy Vinaigrette and generous coating of grated parmesan, is essentially an Italian Caesar. Please tell me you find "Italian Caesar" as funny as I do. After I learned that I could make the Tri Colore Salad at home... Let's just say that for about 9 months, I had to force some avocado and fried eggs on there to change it up a bit every once in a while.

What is Anchovy Vinaigrette?

Anchovy 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. I know it might not seem like it because the dressing has fish in it, but trust me Anchovy Vinaigrette is exactly all of that.

This recipe for Anchovy Vinaigrette is:

• dairy-free
• gluten-free
• refined sugar-free
• pescatarian

What Ingredients You Need for Anchovy Vinaigrette

For this Anchovy Vinaigrette recipe, you will need:

• Anchovies, 5 good, fluffy ones
• Lemon, 1 zest and juice
• Garlic, 2 cloves grated
• Red wine vinegar, 2 tablespoons
• Olive oil

And of course, the usual salt and optional black pepper.

Anchovy Vinaigrette has only a few ingredients, so you can't stray too far from the ingredients, but you can adjust the amounts according to your personal taste preference.

What Kind of Anchovies are Best for Dressing?

This is my favorite brand of anchovies for almost everything. However, they are kind of expensive for a tiny jar—and I ALWAYS RECOMMEND anchovies in jars rather than in tins so you can close with a lid and store. You can get away with more affordable anchovies, like these, but when making recipes like Anchovy Vinaigrette in which the anchovies are the star ingredients, splurge on the better anchovies.

Additional Ingredients Resources and Substitutions

Anchovy Vinaigrette has only a few ingredients, which means they'll really be highlighted so make sure to get the good stuff.

Red Wine Vinegar. This is the "every day" organic red wine vinegar

Olive Oil. If you have one olive oil in your house, by all means use it. However, if you have a choice, use the olive oil with the mildest flavor, even one that is labeled "light." I use this $10-$15 grocery store olive oil as my everyday olive oil, and Brightland as my "special" i.e. not for this vinaigrette. If you want a lighter olive oil flavor, replace with a neutral oil like avocado oil; this is the brand I prefer. This brand is good, too.

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.

Lemon, garlic, and all ither herbs and produce from either the Santa Monica Farmers' Market on Wednesday, or Whole Foods Market when I can't find what I need at the farmers' market.

Anchovy Vinaigrette on Tri-Colore Salad

To use this Anchovy Vinaigrette on a tri-colore salad, toss together:

• 3-4 generous handfuls each of the "tri-colore" lettuces: green arugula, white frisee and red radicchio or red Belgian endive (6 cups arugula, 5 cups frisee, 3 red Belgian endives or 4 cups radicchio)
• ¼ cup Anchovy Vinaigrette
• ¼ to ½ cup of grated Parmesan or 3-5 thin shavings per serving
• freshly ground black pepper

Best Salads for Anchovy Vinaigrette

Use Anchovy Vinaigrette as a go-to dressing for any salad from lettuces to sturdier greens like kale and vegetables where you want a savory, Caesar-y vibe.

Use Anchovy Vinaigrette with these salads:

• Kale Caesar Salad
• Kale White Bean Salad
• Shaved Brussels Sprouts
• Mushroom Lentil Salad

Food for Afterthoughts

Contrary to what you might think about standard wardrobing for a SaHB (Stay-at-Home Blogger), I did not own a single pair of Uggs the first seven years I was food blogging.

"Oh. You too faaancy for Fuggs, huh?"

Well, yes, kind of something like that. Or something like I was too cheap to spend money on what were essentially turtlenecked house slippers to me.

Somehow though, I broke the unreasonable, totally unjustified, hateful bias I had against the shearling-lined homage to fashionable anti-fashion, bought a pair of Uggs, and wore them non-stop since the day I got them.

And by "non-stop since the day I got them," I mean that I also bought a pair of Valentinos around the same time that are about 10 times the price and 100 times the hotness, but still, even a year later, had not yet even take those Valentinos out of the box, never took them out even when we went out to a white-tablecloth Sunday brunch at Mozza, because I tried, I did, to slip by...

"Are you wearing Uggs under that maxi skirt? To brunch?!"

Oh, these? "Ughs?" (LOL IRL.) Oh nonono, silly. I just forgot to take off these things that are more comfortable than actually being barefoot. Let me go kick them off and shove my feet into size 5-toddler glass slippers with 10" spike heels and hellfire hot coals for insoles, 'k?!

I had found myself in a new daily uniform: tattered 20-year-old (20 years, really) hoodie over yellowing wife beater, stretch-denim-let's-call-them-what-they-are-"jeggings," and those then-brand-new Uggs.

Hyperfixation Fashion

I do that, you know. As much as I love looking at all different kinds of pretty clothes and expensive shoes and colorful makeup, the reality of daily dressing, at least for me and my delicious life, is wearing the exact same thing every day, even when it's something I had previously sworn on my six bridemaiddresses' grave that I would never wear.

Like yoga pants.

Or powder blue terry-cloth tracksuits.

Or like Uggs.

If, somehow, an article of clothing makes its way onto my body, once it's on, It. Is. On.

Before hoodie-jeggings-Uggs, it was a long sleeve t-shirt, notlululemon-probably-costco black yoga pants, and flip flops. Before that, spaghetti strap tank with built-in bra-lette over Mom-jean cutoffs, and I don't even know what shoes, probably taking it down to ever classy Britney level, barefoot. So basically, not only did I wear the exact same thing for months at a time, but when my inner Department of Health mandates a change for "biohazard" reasons aka "Shouldn't you do laundry a little more often than once a quarter?!" it was into the French instead of Tahitian of the same fucking vanilla.

Consistency

I do that, you know, in a lot of things.

Clothes.

Restaurants.

Guys.

And if I ever actually get that far, relationships. And if I ever actually get even further, clothes in relationships.

I like to call it consistency.

Even better, commitment!

I think everyone else calls it "gross."

You'd think that someone who has made the kinds of life choices I have wouldn't find herself in ruts of any kind so often, so deep. I've chosen so far to forgo a steady job, marriage, and children — "life things" that normally force people to watch the clock, check the calendar, and not only make plans, but stick to them (not that people actually stick to plans anymore, but that's a topic that requires its own blog post). I can chase any travel whim; I can change my mind on a dime; I can (and should) change my clothes on a Forever 21 H&M Zara dollar!

Scheduled Sponataneity

But the reality of human life is that it runs on routines. To some degree, it has to because routines create a basic structure and a sense of security, like "if I fall asleep tonight, I know I will wake up around this certain time, and will go to work." Otherwise, people would wonder what the hell is going to happen every single minute of the day. Some of us consciously choose to have regular schedules, and some of us, no matter how free-spirited and spontaneous we try to be, will be just that — trying to be spontaneous in the face of this biological, natural, right down to the molecular in-your-human-DNA tendency to regular rhythms.

Our eyes always seem to be drawn to patterns. Without an alarm clock, we still wake up at roughly the same time every day. Still spoon the same mix of dried fruit and granola into our yogurt every morning. We drive the same route between home and office every day. We eat the same three or four things each day, every day.

Rather, we would eat the same three or four things if it weren't drilled into our heads that bigger! broader! wider! variety of foods is so much better. Better for...what exactly? Not sure. My dogs eat the exact same thing twice a day every day and they are happier and healthier than anyone else I know. Except for other dogs.

Anyway.

Six of One, Half Dozen of an Ugg-er

We put on the same fitted flannel button-down, heather grey t-shirt, and j.crew "dressy-because-they're-expensive" sweats. Wait...really?

Really. When sweats cost that much, I'm sure as hell going to wear them as "dress sweats" with bedazzled "cocktail Uggs" to a party. Or brunch.

I'm never aware of how deep of a rut I'm in when I am in it, only shamefully realizing it when I reflect back on a past week or past month or like I am now, a past year. Or two. Or three. It takes a long time to carve out a rut.

I braced myself as I pulled off those Uggs from under my maxi skirt.

Dry, flaky skin. Callused. Cracked. Nail polish faded and chipped down to just enough molecules to recognize the color, some safe, neutral shade of pink. Everything overgrown, and we're not just talking about feet "down there."

But even after months of neglect-bordering-on-complete-abandonment, the condition of my feet wasn't as bad as I had expected. I didn't gasp, didn't recoil in horror, didn't grab my phone because I felt the need to overshare an utterly grotesque "omgyouhavetoseethis." It was nothing a proper pedicure couldn't fix, and I could even do it myself.

I let out a sigh. Half a sigh of relief, mostly a sigh of disappointment that I wasn't shocked into taking some sort of more drastic action right then and there.

I wore closed-toe pumps to brunch. I came back home and gave myself a full pedicure. And as soon as the bright turquoise essie "Mint Candy Apple" had dried on my toes, I slipped my feet right back into my Uggs.

But don't worry I don't wear those Uggs anymore.

I have a new pair, different color.