Spinach Salad Dressing

This spinach salad dressing is the perfect vinaigrette to go with this traditional salad’s red onions, hard-boiled eggs, mushrooms and bacon.

Making the salad dressing itself is simple and straightforward. You can make it often, for more than just this spinach salad. Consider keeping a bottle of this sweet and tangy red onion vinaigrette in a bottle in your fridge as its sweetness goes perfectly with so many salad types.

Other Bacon & Bev recipes to try:

• Arugula Bacon Salad with Honey Mustard Vinaigrette
• Fried Green Tomatoes Topped with Bacon
• Best Breakfast Quiche After Drinking

Ingredients for a full traditional spinach salad, including the dressing:

• Spinach. You can use a package of baby spinach. The leaves of baby spinach are perfect fork size, but regular spinach would work, too. This recipe is designed for a package of spinach, but you can easily double or triple it if you need more to serve a larger party.
• Red onions. Red onions lend a beautify little burst of purple to this colorful salad. Cut into roughly quarter inch pieces or use use red onion rings for a different appearance. Red onions are often preferable to white onions in a salad such as a bacon spinach salad because they are a bit sweeter and they have a pleasing appearance. Raw red onions are also more mild than white onions. You can still use white onion and green onions in salads as well.
• Hard-boiled eggs. Making hard boiled eggs is easy. You simply start with the eggs in a cool pot of water, then bring to a boil. Let them boil for about a minute. Then remove the hard-boiled eggs from the heat and let them continue to cook in the hot water for about 15 minutes. You can dice the hard-boiled eggs for the spinach salad, or you can cut them into discs.
• Mushrooms. Simple button mushrooms or Portobello mushrooms work with this spinach bacon salad recipe. To clean them, wipe them with a damp paper towel.

Spinach Salad Dressing – Red Onion Vinaigrette:

• Red onions. Save about a quarter to an eighth of the red onion you use for the spinach salad..
• Dry mustard powder. Using dry mustard powder works perfectly with this spinach salad dressing. If you don’t have any on hand, you can substitute a bit of Dijon mustard.
• Celery seed. Celery seed adds just the extra spice you need to make this dressing unique.
• Sugar. This recipe does call for some sweetening, but you can reduce the sugar for a lower-calorie version.
• Canola oil. Any oil you use for salads would work. Canola oil works the best for this recipe because it lets the flavors of the other ingredients shine. But olive oil can work just as well. For a light salad oil, try avocado oil or walnut oil. (See below for more on the types of oils that make a good vinaigrette.)
• Red wine vinegar. You can substitute another vinegar like apple cider vinegar or balsamic vinegar. But for a red onion vinaigrette, a red wine adds to the beautiful pinkish color of the dressing.

Instructions:

Spinach Bacon Salad Recipe:

• Add spinach leaves to large bowl.
• Toss with chopped mushrooms and chopped red onion.
• Toss salad with dressing and bacon bits. Or serve dressing on the side.

Red Onion Vinaigrette Dressing Recipe:

• Blend oil, vinegar, sugar, onion and spices in a food processor or blender.

The Best Oils for Spinach Salad Dressings

If you enjoy making your own vinaigrette salad dressing, you have a variety of oils to choose from. Choosing you’re the best oil for your salad may be a matter of taste, health or simply a matter of what you have on hand.

Here are some of your best options for oil for spinach salad dressings:

Olive Oil: The key to using olive oil for spinach salad dressing like olive oil vinaigrette is to use extra virgin olive oil (EVOO), which is 100% natural oil from cold-pressing.

Canola Oil: Canola oil salad dressing is another popular oil-based dressing for spinach salad vinaigrettes. Canola oil is a type of vegetable oil derived from a plant called rapeseed. It has transfat, but it’s a good oil for salad dressing because of its fairly neutral flavor.

Avocado Oil: Avocado oil, prized by health conscious crowd, is derived from an avocado pulp. It’s rich in oleic acid. A lot of people use avocado oil for cooking or frying because of its high smoke point, but it also works well in many homemade salad dressings.

Walnut Oil: Walnut oil is said to contain a bevy of nutrients, omega-3 fatty acids and antioxidants. With a stronger flavor, it’s often paired with balsamic vinaigrette to make a richer spinach salad dressing.

Sesame Oil: Made from sesame seeds, sesame oil has a stronger nutty flavor so should be used carefully in spinach salad dressings. Try using sesame oil in tandem with another milder oil like canola oil if you want a less strong flavor. Toasted sesame seed oil is popular in Asian salad dressings.

Flaxseed Oil: Flaxseed oil is not commonly used in salad dressing, but it can be done. Many people use flax seed oil, which is made from ground flax seeds, for its nutritional value. This oil has omega-3 fatty acid.

Safflower Oil: Safflower oil is an excellent neutral oil to use in basic homemade vinaigrettes. Its also commonly used as a cooking oil because of its higher smoke point.

Coconut Oil: Coconut oil has a number of well-known health benefits, but it does have some limitations for salad dressing use. Primarily, this oil tends to solidify easily, when the temperature drops at about room temperature. So, if you’re using coconut oil in a salad dressing, you may have to warm it up a bit and use immediately.