Creamy Italian Salad Dressing is an easy retro salad dressing to make at home from scratch, and pairs well with pizza and more!
Creamy Italian Salad Dressing
by Sue Lau | Palatable Pastime
I had a night job when I was a teenager back in the 1970’s at Pizza Hut as a waitress.
I was not a very good waitress. (I am a much better cook!)
But while I worked there, we would get food for free as part of our lunch. And while I enjoyed having the pizza (what teen-ager doesn’t?) after awhile it got tiresome and I would head to the salad bar where they had a salad dressing similar to this. It’s not exactly the same. Dry peppers would have been part of it, and while I see those for sale occasionally, they are not generally available. So we get to use fresh. You *can* dry peppers in a dehydrator (I used to dry veggies back in the 1980’s to store as soup mix in jars). In this they might need a little work with a mortar and pestle or spice mill. You can try it if you have the equipment.
With the fresh pepper, this gets a little bit pink if you use the food processor but the flavor is there. If you use canned Parmesan and whisk by hand it should not really get much color beyond white.
I just use this on a basic dinner salad, maybe with a bit of mozz cheese and some chopped salami. An olive is a nice touch–or a banana pepper. I also use yogurt in this. I doubt that was done back at Pizza Hut.
I wanted to post it as a pantry recipe, one you can save to make things at home yourself. It is really good with pizza. I would have made mine “Thick and Chewy” pepperoni, mushroom, and cheese. Double all those ingredients. Do you remember the old thick and chewies?
They went the way of that boring waitress job when PAN pizzas first appeared there. I don’t really miss the pizza, but I DO want that dressing back. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
~Sue
Creamy Italian Salad Dressing
Yield: About 1-1/2 cups
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
- 2 ounce jar diced pimientos
- 1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 1/2 teaspoon dried minced onion
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon parsley flakes
- 1 teaspoon celery flakes
- 1 teaspoon dried snipped chives
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Method:
- Whisk together or pulse in food processor (I do the food processor since my Parmesan is not powdery).
From the kitchen of palatablepastime.com
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Dear Sue, this looks like such a wonderful summer salad, but it is perfect any time of year. xo, Catherine
Thanks!