How to make bottled salad dressing 10x better

Trader Joe Romano dressing + balsamic vinegar: how to make bottled salad dressing 10x better

It’s easy to make bottled salad dressing 10x better. It’s also quick and virtually free, because you probably have the key ingredient on hand. (I am staying in a hotel at the moment but luckily there is a bottle of said ingredient.) So let’s get started.

First, you need the bottled salad dressing. Products that claim to be vinaigrettes (“oil and vinegar”) are best for this though it will work for creamy dressings like thousand island and bleu cheese. Orange-y french dressing, not so much; but we have another hack for that. For our example we’re going to use Trader Joe’s Caesar Romano.

Now, dress your salad as you normally would… but drizzle on some vinegar before you serve. Wine vinegar (white or red), balsamic vinegar, cider vinegar all would work… just not white vinegar that has an acrid taste.

Taste… and see if you don’t agree that your bottled salad dressing is now 10x better! This works because commercial salad dressings are intentionally milder than they should be; they are calibrated for the broadest possible audience and the producers don’t want to lose customers who think it’s too tart.

Bonus hack: sprinkle on a bit of black pepper if you want an extra kick. (But not salt… these dressings are likely over salted already.) And this works especially well with “French” dressing, as well with vinaigrettes.