Two copy cat salad dressing recipes- Olive Garden and Pine Club's House Dressings
I love copy cat recipes- you get the satisfaction of making your own food and spend way less money than if you'd bought the item from a restaurant or store. Healthy pride and saving money? Yes and Yes! The downside, of course, of making your own version of restaurant food is you have a mess to clean up in your kitchen.
The last time that Abby and I ate lunch at Olive Garden, after Abby had several bites of the house salad, she remarked to me, "You should find a copy cat recipe for this salad dressing. It's so good." I agreed with her on both counts.
An internet search of copy cat Olive Garden salad dressing yielded many results. The dressing recipes were similair to each other. I decided to try one of the recipes with the fewest ingredients.
I found this one and decided to try it. Abby and I were both impressed with the result. The dressing definitely tasted like Olive Garden's salad dressing. Maybe not exactly like it but it was similar and it was good; whether it was exactly the same wasn't as important as the fact that we really liked it and it was reminiscent of Olive Garden's.
Here is the recipe I use for Olive Garden's House Italian dressing:
1 packet Italian dressing mix
3/4 cup oil (vegetable or canola)
1/4 cup olive oil
1 TBLS mayonnaise
1/3 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup water
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp dried Italian seasoning
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp garlic powder
Instructions:
Mix all of the ingredients until thoroughly combined.
Store dressing in the refrigerator for 2-3 weeks.
Our local Kroger sells Olive Garden's signature Italian salad dressing. Two things to note: Making this dressing at home is definitely cheaper. Kroger sells its 16 oz bottle for $3.99. The above recipe costs maybe $1.50 to make. The other thing I noted is that the ingredient list is quite different than the ingredients in the copy cat recipe (no wonder the copy cat version doesn't taste exactly the same; the ingredients are quite different). In the version for sale at Kroger, the first ingredient is water. The second ingredient is soybean oil. High fructose corn syrup, not even in the copy cat recipe, is the fourth ingredient.
When contemplating making the salad, I "splurge" (it's only about .50 more than the bargain brand) and buy Olive Garden brand croutons. They taste better than the Kroger brand to me and more like Olive Garden's restaurant salad croutons. It will be a long time from now before I contemplate making copy cat croutons- I am perfectly content to buy them at the store :).
Ingredients for the salad dressing (although for some reason, not pictured is pepper)
The dressing fits perfectly in this salad carafe that I received free one time when I bought a multi pack of Good Seasons brand Italian recipe mix.
Had to snap this pic- I was making the dressing one time and somehow the mayo slipped out of my hands when I was measuring it out for the recipe (maybe my hands were greasy? how else would a container of mayo fall out of my hands??) and a glob of mayo ended up on the flour. The mess factor is real when I'm in the kitchen :).
Another salad dressing I make is the Pine Club salad dressing. I make this when I'm making (my version of) Dorothy Lane Market's Pine Club pasta salad. DLM's Pine Club salad consists of bowtie pasta, bacon, an assortment of veggies and cheese slathered in the Pine Club's signature house salad dressing. I LOVE DLM's Pine Club pasta salad but for two or three things: 1) the price- $7.49/ lb and 2) it contains ingredients that I don't care too much for- broccoli, tomatoes and cauliflower. The former two I usually add to my pasta salad but I don't add as much as the DLM version has.
I found a copy cat recipe online for the Pine Club dressing years ago. Then one day I wanted to make the dressing so I went to the website that had the dressing recipe and the webpage displayed a Page Not Found error. WHAT??? Where was my recipe? Because Pine Club is only a local, Dayton restaurant, the internet was not bursting with its copy cat recipes. Oh dear, would I be forced to pay $7.49 per pound at DLM if I wanted the salad and then to add insult to injury, pick out the veggies that I didn't like (thereby decreasing the value since I'd paid per pound yet was throwing away veggies that I didn't like)?
Then I remembered that I'd taken a picture of the recipe on my phone to refer to it in the kitchen when I was making the dressing. That was fortuitous!! I had the recipe after all... I just redid a search of copy cat recipes for the house Pine Club salad dressing. The two I found were a decent bit different than mine. Both recipes I found called for a tablespoon of salt. Yikes! I will definitely not be trying those copy cat recipes. Here is the recipe that I use:
Copy cat Pine Club salad dressing
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. garlic powder
1/8 tsp. white pepper
Combine all ingredients. Pour over pasta- I suppose you could add this to a garden salad. I've never done that before but I'm sure it would be good.
My version of Dorothy Lane's Pine Club pasta salad consists of cooked bow tie pasta (12- 16 ounces), a small amount of cut up tomato and broccoli florets and cheese.
c
The last time that Abby and I ate lunch at Olive Garden, after Abby had several bites of the house salad, she remarked to me, "You should find a copy cat recipe for this salad dressing. It's so good." I agreed with her on both counts.
An internet search of copy cat Olive Garden salad dressing yielded many results. The dressing recipes were similair to each other. I decided to try one of the recipes with the fewest ingredients.
I found this one and decided to try it. Abby and I were both impressed with the result. The dressing definitely tasted like Olive Garden's salad dressing. Maybe not exactly like it but it was similar and it was good; whether it was exactly the same wasn't as important as the fact that we really liked it and it was reminiscent of Olive Garden's.
Here is the recipe I use for Olive Garden's House Italian dressing:
1 packet Italian dressing mix
3/4 cup oil (vegetable or canola)
1/4 cup olive oil
1 TBLS mayonnaise
1/3 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup water
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp dried Italian seasoning
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp garlic powder
Instructions:
Mix all of the ingredients until thoroughly combined.
Store dressing in the refrigerator for 2-3 weeks.
Our local Kroger sells Olive Garden's signature Italian salad dressing. Two things to note: Making this dressing at home is definitely cheaper. Kroger sells its 16 oz bottle for $3.99. The above recipe costs maybe $1.50 to make. The other thing I noted is that the ingredient list is quite different than the ingredients in the copy cat recipe (no wonder the copy cat version doesn't taste exactly the same; the ingredients are quite different). In the version for sale at Kroger, the first ingredient is water. The second ingredient is soybean oil. High fructose corn syrup, not even in the copy cat recipe, is the fourth ingredient.
When contemplating making the salad, I "splurge" (it's only about .50 more than the bargain brand) and buy Olive Garden brand croutons. They taste better than the Kroger brand to me and more like Olive Garden's restaurant salad croutons. It will be a long time from now before I contemplate making copy cat croutons- I am perfectly content to buy them at the store :).
Ingredients for the salad dressing (although for some reason, not pictured is pepper)
The dressing fits perfectly in this salad carafe that I received free one time when I bought a multi pack of Good Seasons brand Italian recipe mix.
Had to snap this pic- I was making the dressing one time and somehow the mayo slipped out of my hands when I was measuring it out for the recipe (maybe my hands were greasy? how else would a container of mayo fall out of my hands??) and a glob of mayo ended up on the flour. The mess factor is real when I'm in the kitchen :).
Another salad dressing I make is the Pine Club salad dressing. I make this when I'm making (my version of) Dorothy Lane Market's Pine Club pasta salad. DLM's Pine Club salad consists of bowtie pasta, bacon, an assortment of veggies and cheese slathered in the Pine Club's signature house salad dressing. I LOVE DLM's Pine Club pasta salad but for two or three things: 1) the price- $7.49/ lb and 2) it contains ingredients that I don't care too much for- broccoli, tomatoes and cauliflower. The former two I usually add to my pasta salad but I don't add as much as the DLM version has.
I found a copy cat recipe online for the Pine Club dressing years ago. Then one day I wanted to make the dressing so I went to the website that had the dressing recipe and the webpage displayed a Page Not Found error. WHAT??? Where was my recipe? Because Pine Club is only a local, Dayton restaurant, the internet was not bursting with its copy cat recipes. Oh dear, would I be forced to pay $7.49 per pound at DLM if I wanted the salad and then to add insult to injury, pick out the veggies that I didn't like (thereby decreasing the value since I'd paid per pound yet was throwing away veggies that I didn't like)?
Then I remembered that I'd taken a picture of the recipe on my phone to refer to it in the kitchen when I was making the dressing. That was fortuitous!! I had the recipe after all... I just redid a search of copy cat recipes for the house Pine Club salad dressing. The two I found were a decent bit different than mine. Both recipes I found called for a tablespoon of salt. Yikes! I will definitely not be trying those copy cat recipes. Here is the recipe that I use:
Copy cat Pine Club salad dressing
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. garlic powder
1/8 tsp. white pepper
Combine all ingredients. Pour over pasta- I suppose you could add this to a garden salad. I've never done that before but I'm sure it would be good.
My version of Dorothy Lane's Pine Club pasta salad consists of cooked bow tie pasta (12- 16 ounces), a small amount of cut up tomato and broccoli florets and cheese.
c
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