If You Have Cranberries And Dijon Mustard, Make A Flavorful Salad Dressing In 15 Minutes

You've experimented with a cranberry stuffing, prepared cranberry cookies, and even made a cranberry loaf cake. But have you ever considered turning these ruby-red berries into a salad dressing? It only takes a few minutes to whip up a delicious vinaigrette with a tart character, striking color, and silky-smooth consistency. You just need a little Dijon mustard, a blender, and some basic pantry staples to get started.

Fresh cranberries are naturally tart and have a note of astringency, which makes them an incredible addition to savory salads. Bright and tangy, they lend a basic bowl of greens a nuanced flavor and complexity. Making a cranberry dressing for a fall salad is as easy as blending up the berries with olive oil, vinegar, sugar, seasonings, and a small measure of Dijon mustard until smooth. The fruity zing of the cranberries is tamed by the sugar while the mustard brings some spicy heat to the table. The result is a complex dressing with an unusual color that's perfect for pairing with salad leaves, crumbled blue cheese, walnuts, and pears. That said, there's plenty of bandwidth to experiment with other ingredients, like sliced apples, shredded carrot, red cabbage, or more. You can also keep the dressing slightly textured if preferred, make it thick (but smooth) so it coats the vegetables generously, or add a dash of water to thin it down.

If you haven't got fresh cranberries on hand, you can use a dollop of cranberry sauce instead. In this case, omit the sugar in the dressing, as the canned stuff is already sweetened to balance out the tartness of the berries (Whole Foods 365 topped the rankings in our list of eight store-bought cranberry sauce brands, but it was much sweeter than the other options we tried). 

If you haven't got either of these options, you can use redcurrants in a pinch. Similar to cranberries, these small, bright red berries have a slight sharpness to them. While their acidic bite and astringency aren't as intense as fresh cranberries, you can blend them into your dressing in the same way and adjust the seasonings as necessary. They'll also produce a dressing with a striking hue that provides contrast against the other elements of your salad, such as leafy greens, chunks of feta, or crumbled nuts. 

Meanwhile, you can switch the Dijon for other varieties of mustard or use prepared horseradish. Granted, this condiment is much spicier than Dijon, but its sinus-clearing character can be mellowed out with a touch more sugar or dampened down with a dollop of mayo. Just scale back the measure you use and taste as you go to build a balanced dressing that's tangy, spicy, and warm with a note of sweetness.