1 Base Salad Dressing: 3 Ways to Use It

Start with GZ's go-to vinaigrette, then dress it up with additional ingredients for bold flavors and textures.

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Base Vinaigrette

While store-bought dressings and vinaigrettes are surely convenient, most are packed with sugar and sodium; the homemade stuff is quick to mix up, so stick with a recipe the next time you toss a salad. On this morning's episode of The Kitchen, the cast introduced three bold — and fuss-free — salad dressings that can be ready in mere minutes. Start with Geoffrey Zakarian's Base Vinaigrette (pictured above). Once you master that simple combination of red wine vinegar, shallots and oil, you can either serve that mixture on its own, like GZ does with arugula, or you can add more ingredients to create a brand-new dressing with rich tastes and textures.

Goat Cheese and Blackberry Vinaigrette

Creamy and subtly sweet, Jeff Mauro's Goat Cheese and Blackberry Vinaigrette features the tang of the smooth cheese, which he balances with pureed fresh berries. He simply whisks these ingredients together with GZ's vinaigrette and a pinch of chives to create a bright topping.

Sunny's Creamy Mascarpone-Bacon Dressing

For something a bit more indulgent, stick with Sunny Anderson's Creamy Mascarpone-Bacon Dressing. Whisk cool mascarpone cheese into GZ's base vinaigrette, then add chopped bacon for welcome texture. The secret to Sunny's recipe? The teaspoon of bacon fat she mixes in. Its rich, smoky flavor rounds out the flavor easily.

Tune in to an all-new episode of The Kitchen on Saturday at 11a|10c.

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