Is Olive Garden Store-Bought Dressing The Same As What's Served In Restaurants?
"You gotta get me the recipe for this dressing, I've never tasted anything so good!" an actress in a 2001 Olive Garden commercial exclaims. Years later, and it seems the sentiment still rings true. Since the first Olive Garden opened in 1982, the Italian-American restaurant chain has been serving up its iconic salad, and though it contains fairly standard salad ingredients such as lettuce, tomato, onions, and croutons, what really sets it apart is the salad dressing, which is also sold in stores. If you've ever tried the retail version and thought it tasted just like the dressing you get in the restaurant, you'll be happy to learn that your suspicions were correct.
It used to be that you could only buy bottles of the signature salad dressing at the restaurant, but in 2012, Olive Garden announced the product would be available at Sam's Club on Facebook. Darden Restaurants, the parent company of Olive Garden, intended for the dressing to only be on shelves for a year, but of course we all know how that worked out. Considering the store-bought dressing is the exact same as what's served in restaurants, it's no surprise that the bottled product has remained so popular.
What's in Olive Garden salad dressing?
Olive Garden has two versions of its salad dressing: signature Italian and Light Italian. The signature Italian is a vinaigrette, but instead of olive oil and balsamic vinegar as you might expect, it's made with soybean oil and distilled vinegar. The dressing gets its creaminess from egg and Romano cheese, and its zestiness from a blend of black pepper, onion powder, crushed red pepper, and herbs including parsley, basil, and oregano.
The lower fat Light Italian is flavored similarly and also has an oil and vinegar base. However, it also has red bell pepper, buttermilk solids, and only uses the yolks of the egg as opposed to the whole egg like the regular version. The lighter version also gets an additional boost of citrusy tang from lemon juice concentrate. Olive Garden dressing retailer Sam's Club confirms that the signature Italian variety is made according to the same recipe used at the restaurants, and based on the nutrition facts shared on the Olive Garden website, the low-fat version appears to be the same as the store-bought dressing as well.
Olive Garden doesn't make its own dressing
Back in the '90s, Olive Garden made its pasta entirely from scratch, but now it's simply boiled in big batches every morning. Some items such as the soups are still made fresh, however others are premade. The desserts, for example, are frozen until someone orders them, and the breadsticks aren't even made at the restaurants, but rather by another company. The same can be said of Olive Garden's dressing, which means even the people who work at the restaurants don't know the exact recipe.
Olive Garden's dressing is currently made by T. Marzetti Company, a dressing and specialty foods manufacturer that began producing dressing for Olive Garden long before it was sold in stores. According to the back of the bottle, the recipe that the company created for Olive Garden hasn't changed for nearly 30 years. Thanks to the popularity of the original Italian dressing, T. Marzetti Company now also makes Olive Garden brand Parmesan Ranch and Classic Caesar dressing, but you can only get those selections in stores.