How to adjust this salad dressing recipe to extend storage life?
Following this question: How long will this homemade vinaigrette salad dressing keep in the fridge?
Which of these adjustments will prolong storage life to a significant extent?
- remove garlic
- add honey
- replace lemon with (or add) vinegar
- change acid:oil ratio from 1:2 to 1:1
- instead of shaking mixture (to emulsify oil and acid), just whisk to blend
Best Answer
Some answers:
Swapping lemon juice for vinegar will extend storage life, because lemon juice contains volatile compounds that break down in a few days, whereas vinegar is a fermentation product that is shelf-stable for long periods of time. Also, vinegar has a slightly higher acidity, and (all else being equal) higher acidity foods are more bacteria-resistant.
Changing the oil:acid ratio would also increase shelf life for the same reason. However, you wouldn't necessarily want to use the resulting dressing, as it would be way too "sharp".
Increasing the amount of salt in the dressing would also increase its storage life, at the cost of undesireable flavor.
I see no reason why mixing method would affect the shelf life of a vinagrette. It will separate during storage regardless.
Swapping the raw garlic out for powdered garlic should increase the storage life, because raw garlic (being a below-ground bulb) often carries significant bacterial content.
There is no reason to think that adding a small quantity of honey would affect storage life.
However, all of this leaves out the way to ensure the longest shelf life for salad dressing: don't mix the ingredients until you need them. All of the ingredients in your recipe have storage lives of weeks (garlic) to months (oil, dried basil) to years (vinegar). In unmixed form, you can be ready to dress a salad in a matter of minutes for months, especially if you're willing to use powdered garlic. As opposed to all of the methods above, which you'll notice each involve downgrading the flavor of the dressing in some way, which is why supermarket bottled dressings are so bad.
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How do you increase the shelf life of salad dressing?
Heat Treatment. It is a good idea to ensure that the salad dressing receive a heat treatment especially if the product is bacteriostatic and even if it is bactericidal. This will help ensure that spoilage organisms are killed which will help lengthen the shelf life of the product and ensure that the product is safe.How do you preserve salad dressing?
The best way to store salad dressing is the same as storing any leftover food: in a container with a lid with as much air removed as possible and stored in the refrigerator. Just like eggs, it's best if these are stored not on the refrigerator door, but on the shelf where it's colder.How long can you store homemade salad dressing?
Generally, vinaigrettes can be kept refrigerated for up to 2 weeks. Dairy-based dressings, like buttermilk, and dressings made with fresh ingredients, like chopped onion, fresh herbs, tomato sauce and chopped hard-boiled egg, will keep up to 1 week.How do you keep homemade salad dressing from solidifying?
Some balsamic vinegar\u2013Use a really good one for this! I keep a bottle of cheaper vinegar to use for cooking, and save my awesome vinegar for salads. A few drops of clear, liquid stevia. About 1/2 teaspoon ground mustard\u2013Again, feel free to play around with the amount.8 Healthy Salad Dressings (REALLY QUICK)
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