yellow mustard salad dressing

My advice is this:

Ditch the yellow and use whole grain or dijon.

Nearly any vinegar will work.  Home cooks will easily find red, champagne, sherry or rice vinegar.  Please stay away from white or distilled.

I like a blended oil for dressings, which means it's mostly neutral (for body) and a splash of extra virgin (for flavor).

Add a minced shallot or crushed garlic clove with some liberal seasoning and you've got something delicious.

You bought the French's, so use/try it first.  Who says you're not going to like it?  Try it with whatever oil and vinegar you have right now.  Completely uncomplicated.  Start with new ideas from the most basic simple point you can, then expand, compare and try new things.  I mean shoot, we're talking salad here.  $4 worth of salad feeds about 19 people.  How can you go wrong?   

Sometimes you just can't beat some good yellow mustard.  Nothing else will do on a hot dog imo!  Dijon is a nice mild for vinegraittes but yellow mustard has its own fine flavor and you'll like it.  The great thing about mustard is that it emulsifies your dressing, even the slightest hint of mustard will keep your dressing from splitting.  I tend to use mostly red wine vinegar, balsamic, and sherry.  I almost always use olive oil and stay away from neutral (flavorless) oils.

For a basic vinaigrette combine 3 parts olive oil to 1 part vinegar and add a dollop of mustard, just a little bit.  Season and taste, and add more mustard as you like, be careful because it can really over power.

If you go a step further and add more mustard and a good blob of honey you've got yourself honey mustard, a highly under appreciated dressing that is all too oft paired with chicken nuggets nowadays.

For Asian twist try sesame oil and rice wine vinegar, with a bit of soy sauce, ginger and mustard.

OK. Good points.   As for the vinegar; at any decent grocery store you should be able to find red wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar and/or white vinegar for around $1.49 / bottle. Champagne, sherry or rice vinegar for only about $1 more.   Next for the oil; I've never been all that fast to buy EVOO. I get whatever "decent name brand" regular olive oil on sale for around $6 / quart. I prefer Italian or Spanish oils. It's kinda funny, but I've used coupons to buy Crisco EVOO on sale for $3.49. I think they use Spanish oil. I have found that mixing EVOO with 3 ingredients or more is a waste of the extra cost.   After all your "salad dressing" experimentations have been satisfied you still have the yellow mustard left over, it is still one of the major components of a good standard hot-dog. There's nothing wrong with that. 

All things being equal, my salad dressings usually use red wine vinegar and regular olive oil.   I hope that helps answer your questions. 

I agree with both Miss KK and Iceman, try whatever you think will work and that doesn't cost alot.

I'm a skin-flint, I just can't waste money, if I buy something for one recipe, say that nice quart of EVOO,

it's got to be able to be used in multiple ways for it to be worth me opening up my coin purse for,

at least speaking as a Home Cook anyway. 

... And I think I may steal KK's idea of a Honey Mustard dressing for tonight's repast, YUM!

Quote:

Originally Posted by toronado455 

I've seen people make a salad dressing out of oil, vinegar, and yellow mustard - just mixing it all together.

I'd recommend mixing the mustard with the vinegar first, then dissolving the salt and pepper. THEN, and only then, incorporate the oil. 

The oil is produced by grinding whole olives and extracting the oil by mechanical or chemical means. 

The different names for olive oil indicate the degree of processing the oil has undergone as well as the quality of the oil. Extra-virgin olive oil is the highest grade available, followed by virgin olive oil. The word "virgin" indicates that the olives have been pressed to extract the oil; no heat or chemicals have been used during the extraction process, and the oil is pure and unrefined. Virgin olive oils contain the highest levels of polyphenols, antioxidants that have been linked with better health.

Cold pressed or Cold extraction means "that the oil was not heated over a certain temperature (usually 80 °F (27 °C)) during processing, thus retaining more nutrients and undergoing less degradation. For the most part, we're talking room temperature at the time. They don't really "cook" the oil. 

First cold pressed (Italy) means "that the fruit of the olive was crushed exactly one time i.e., the first press. The cold refers to the temperature range of the fruit at the time it is crushed. There is however, no international reliable definition of "cold pressed".

Furthermore, there is no "second" press of virgin oil, so the term "first press" means only that the oil was produced in a press vs. other possible methods.

definitions:

Virgin means the oil was produced by the use of physical means and no chemical treatment.

Refined means that the oil has been chemically treated to neutralize strong tastes (characterized as defects) and neutralize the acid content (free fatty acids). Refined oil is commonly regarded as lower quality than virgin oil; oils with the retail labels extra-virgin olive oil and virgin olive oil cannot contain any refined oil.

grades:

Extra-virgin olive oil comes from virgin oil production only, contains no more than 0.8% acidity, and is judged to have a superior taste. It is used on salads, added at the table to soups and stews and for dipping.

Virgin olive oil comes from virgin oil production only, has an acidity less than 1.5%, and is judged to have a good taste.

Pure olive oil. Oils labeled as Pure olive oil or Olive oil are usually a blend of refined and virgin production oil.

Olive oil is a blend of virgin and refined production oil, of no more than 2% acidity. It commonly lacks a strong flavor.

* Where do they get "virgin olive oil"??? .......................... Ugly Olives.

I find a completely negligible difference in the flavor of EVOO, and regular high-quality olive oil from a good company, when mixing with anything more than three(3) ingredients. I don't spend the extra money. Now we're not talking Pennzoil or Quaker State here. The oil I use is still "virgin", because I'm not real quick to deal with chemical stuff.

Columela, Lucini Italia, Colavita, Bertolli, Filippo Berio, Goya, Pompeian, Botticelli, Carapelli, DaVinci.   (All good grocery-store brands)

If those seem scary ... it does get easier. Ready for this? Two(2) really nice brands, with absolutely quality flavor and qualities are ...

Trader Joe's   and   Kirkland (Costco)

Quote:

Originally Posted by IceMan 

 

    Ready for this? ...really nice brands, with absolutely quality flavor  ...

 

...    Kirkland (Costco)

 

As a Home Expert, I buy my Olive Oil at Costco (their house brand) and have done so for many years. 

Yes, you do have to buy it in bulk, it's two 2liter jugs, but I feel it's worth the money. 

I use it for alot of different things, like tonight I made a Chicken & Veg Stir Fry, it didn't compete flavor wise. 

But then the taste is nice enough to use in a dressing or even as a dip with herbs for a nice bread. 

Not too strong and yet not to subtle at the same time. 

The "neutral", what my Grandma called Salad Oil, I use for baking, though I have a recipe for a lovely cake using EVOO!

Quote:

Originally Posted by toronado455 

I find it somewhat surprising that everyone has recommended olive oil to go with the yellow mustard. I would almost think that would make for a less than wonderful combo. I would think that a more bland and flavorless oil would be better, but what do I know. I'm sure olive oil would be fine too, just might create a situation with too many competing flavors. I suppose this is because I'm considering using more yellow mustard in the recipe than might otherwise be advisable.
 

Incidentally, at the market today most of the olive oils were labeled "extra virgin" and the few that were not labeled "extra virgin" were the same price anyway. What does "extra virgin" even mean and why should I care?

California makes some wonderful olive oil nowadays.  It seems nowadays there is an olive oil bandwagon everyone is hopping on.  Being mediterranean myself it has never occurred to us to use anything except olive oil for almost every purpose including baking.  We even deep fry in it.  So I've never seen it as a fad.  Olive oil is like good wine, there's the good kind and there's the better kind, and there's the stuff you can buy at the drug store.  It's all edible but you do have to try it.

We found this vinegar a long time ago shopping with a friend when we first came to the mainland :

Alessi White Balsamic Vinegar

8.5 fl. oz.

Alessi White Balsamic Vinegar is a wonderful blend of Italian white wine vinegar and the boiled down musts of white grapes. Use it in salads and white sauces or on fish, vegetables or french fries. A deposit found in the bottle is a natural occurrence of the product and does not deter the quality. Acidity 6%. Product of Italy.

Love it for salad dressings!

It’s not as harsh is the best way that I can describe it.

It’s only around $5-6 and of course vinegars will last you

a pretty good long time tucked away in the back of the pantry,

so it’s not a bad investment.

You can find this brand in many MegaMarts.

But you know Tornado, it really depends upon how acidic you want to go. 

For me, I really like the softer vinegars, like you, I like Rice Vinegar and I use that as well.

So that’s my two cents, FWIW.

Nice find K-girl. I also like Awasezu (Japanese seasoned rice vinegar). A good alternative.

Exert from Wikipedia:

Japanese rice vinegar (米酢 komezu, "rice vinegar" or simply 酢 su, "vinegar") is very mild and mellow (approximately 5% acetic acid, much less than western vinegars) and ranges in colour from colourless to pale yellow. It is made from either rice or sake lees. These komezu are more specifically called yonezu (米酢 よねず) and kasuzu (粕酢 かすず), respectively. These vinegars are used in making sunomono (酢の物, "vinegar dishes"), tsukemono (漬物, "pickles"), nimono (煮物, "simmered dishes"), as well as in marinades to mitigate the stronger odours of certain fishes and meats.

Seasoned rice vinegar (合わせ酢 awasezu) is made by adding sake, salt and sugar. Additionally, mirin is also sometimes used (but only rarely). Although it can be made at home, prepared awasezu can also be readily bought at supermarkets. Seasoned rice vinegar is added to cooked rice (ご飯 gohan) to be used in making sushi. It is also used in salad dressing varieties popular in the west, such as ginger or sesame dressing.

I hadn't really sat down and thought too much about Vinegar before, Thank you Tornado!

OK. This stuff, "major name brand", is $1.89 by my house today: 

HEINZ Apple Cider Vinegar. 

The "store brand", in almost exact same packaging, was $1.39.  Today if I was buying, I would have gone w/ the Heinz, because it came in a plastic bottle, the cheaper was in glass, I prefer plastic.  This "red wine vinegar" was the same situation, but fancier bottles, both "Heinz" and "store brand", for 40¢ more each. 

HEINZ Red Wine Vinegar.

As far as "balsamic vinegars", the one I use cost $3.99/btl. I can't tell you the name because I stepped on the cap, and so I put the vinegar in a squirt bottle.  I might be considered "different" in that the ingredients such as oil and vinegar don't get much scrutiny from me such as the main ingredients they are used on or with do. As long as it's good, it's good. Like knives, forks, spoons, plates and napkins. As long as they're clean, they work just fine. Wine glasses on the other hand, are special, but that's a different story.  If the inexpensive "store brand" of vinegar tastes OK, then I would go with it.