Poppy Seed Dressing

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Poppy seed dressing is an underused but incredibly delicious dressing, perfect for all kinds of different recipes. Sweet, sour, and still plenty savory, this should be in every home cook’s repertoire to whip up quickly for a salad.

Why not use this poppy seed dressing to make some Strawberry Spinach Salad? Or make this Green Goddess Dressing instead?

Poppy Seed Dressing

Poppy seeds sadly don’t really see much use in home kitchens. While they used to be an incredibly popular addition to many different baking recipes, nowadays, poppy seeds are reserved only for bagels or maybe some lemon poppy seed muffins.

However, poppy seeds have such a unique and distinctive flavor that it seems a shame to limit their use to only a few different recipes.

This recipe for poppy seed dressing might just change your mind about how versatile and tasty poppy seeds can be. It is thick, luxurious, rich, and packed with flavor, as well as being very poppy seed-forward.

There are also loads of different ways to play around with the precise flavors here, so get creative and see what works best for you!

Poppy Seed Dressing Ingredients

Make sure you look at the recipe card at the very bottom for the exact amounts so that you know exactly what to buy for this recipe.

• Olive oil

• Shallot

•Red wine vinegar

• White sugar

• Ground dry mustard

• Poppy seeds

• Salt

How To Make Poppy Seed Dressing

• Add all of the ingredients to a jar with a tight-fitting lid and shake well

• Add a bit more sugar and vinegar to taste, and then serve

How To Turn This Dressing Into Something More Creamy

This poppy seed dressing will have a pretty runny consistency, allowing it to pour over and cling to your salad leaves more easily.

Thanks to the oil and vinegar, it shouldn’t flow like water, but if you do find it just that little bit too runny, there are a few things you can do to help increase the viscosity of your dressing.

Firstly, you could add one or two tablespoons of mayonnaise to the recipe – this will make the whole thing a lot more creamy, giving it a more salad dressing, almost dip-like consistency. This might be a bit too thick for salads, but is a perfect way to ensure that it is thick enough to be used in other applications, like on a sandwich.

If you don’t want it as creamy but still want it to have that little bit thicker texture, you could substitute the ground dry mustard for about twice as actual regular mustard. Something like English mustard or a Dijon would be perfect here, but regular yellow mustard works just fine.

The use of actual mustard helps thicken the texture of the dressing while also making it a lot more mustard-forward in flavor, so only do this if you really like mustard!

How To Subtly Change The Flavor Of This Dressing

This recipe really only has a few basic ingredients, and if you try and change too many of them, you are basically making something entirely different.

While it can always be fun to change around ingredients and see what kinds of different recipes you can make with a few changes, you can still alter this recipe while remaining true to the core of poppy seed dressing.

For example, instead of using white sugar, you could substitute it for any other type of sweetener, like dark brown sugar or even honey.

The white sugar gives the dressing a clean, uncomplicated sweetness, but some nice honey would completely change the subtle flavors within the dressing, elevating and altering it into something totally different.

Why not see if you can find some really different kinds of honey from the basic, ordinary clover or wildflower honey. Summertime chestnut honey has this dark, deep, and rich flavor that would pair perfectly with the robust flavor of the poppy seeds.

You could also play around with the vinegar choice in this recipe – instead of using the base red wine vinegar, you could substitute it with champagne vinegar or even sherry vinegar. While they are all kinds of vinegar, each of them has their own separate and unique flavor profile that makes for a totally different and delicious dressing.

Experiment and change the ingredients around and try to find what you like best!

Looking for more delicious Marinades, Sauces & Salad Dressings recipes? Try these out:

• Lemon Aioli

• Chicken Caesar Salad

• Garlic Butter Sauce

Happy Cooking

Love,

Karlynn

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