Fresh Peach Vinaigrette Salad Dressing

Prep: 10 mins

Cook: 0 mins

Total: 10 mins

Servings: 4 servings

When it's high summer, there's an abundance of peaches at the market. You can make pies, cobblers, and jams to your heart's content, but peaches also work beautifully in a vinaigrette salad dressing. It's the perfect way to use up that peach that's a little past its prime—the fruit is blended with the other dressing ingredients, so you would never be able to tell that it might have a mushy spot here or there.

This fresh peach dressing can be used on any type of green salad. Try a salad made of fresh kale, red onion, and peach wedges, but use your clean hands to massage the peach dressing into the kale leaves to soften them a bit before serving. Add a little bit of crumbled feta and some chopped pecans to give the salad extra texture.

Ingredients

• 1 large peach

• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

• 3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt

• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper, optional

Steps to Make It

1. Gather the ingredients.

2. Peel, pit and chop the peach.

3. Combine the peach with the remaining ingredients in a blender or food processor. Blend until thoroughly combined. Taste and season to your liking.

Tips

• The most effective way to peel a peach is to put it in boiling water for between 10 to 20 seconds, or until the skin splits. Pull it out with a slotted spoon and dump it into an ice water bath. After a few seconds of cooling, the skin will slip right off. You can also use a paring knife to peel the skin off, but you might take some of the flesh of the peach away with it.
• Whenever possible, use high-quality oil and acid in homemade dressing recipes. Because there are so few ingredients, they all star in the final product. When you use low-quality ingredients, your salad dressing won’t taste quite so delicious.
• If you prefer the dressing to be a bit sweeter, add 1 tablespoon honey to the blender. For a spicier kick, add extra red cayenne pepper to the mixture.
• If the dressing is too thick for your liking, thin it out with up to 2 tablespoons of water.
• The dressing can be kept in the refrigerator in an airtight container for up to a week.
• You can modify this salad dressing with your favorite types of fat and acid, just use the standard ratio of 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar. Taste as you add ingredients to find the variation that you like the most.

Recipe Variations

• Creamy peach salad dressing: Add 1/4 cup full-fat coconut milk to the blender. Replace the vinegar with the equivalent amount of freshly squeezed lemon juice.
• Basil-peach vinaigrette: Add 1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil or 1/2 tablespoon dried basil to the blender.
• Ginger-peach vinaigrette: Add 1 tablespoon of fresh ginger to the blender.
• Jalapeño-peach vinaigrette: Eliminate the red cayenne pepper and add one fresh jalapeño, stem removed, to the blender. To decrease the heat, remove the seeds from the jalapeño before using it in the dressing.
• Fresh pear vinaigrette: Replace the fresh peach in the dressing with a fresh pear.