The Department of Salad Dressing Room: Try This Powerful, Creamy, Garlic-Chive Protein Dressing 👗 🚪 🥗
A big-flavored new outfit for your green salads to wear when they're tired of all the usual (and slightly unctuous) creamy costumes in their closet.
I THINK WE’VE MADE IT PRETTY CLEAR here at the Department of Salad that as much as we love a sprightly vinaigrette, we also relish just about every kind of creamy dressing out there—especially if it’s fortified with a shot of mayonnaise or rich sour cream. Why not live a little?
But there’s something to be said for the kinds of dressings that get the creamy job done and make you feel virtuous (as if eating salad dressing could make one virtuous LOL). The extremely garlicky, chive-packed number we have for you today, which has cottage cheese as its base, is one example.
Whether or not it’s fair to call cottage cheese “healthy”—and what the hell does that even mean?—there’s no denying that it is packed with protein. And protein is all the rage with the kids these days. If giant food corporations can get away with selling gluten free pickles, I can certainly get away with calling this recipe a “protein dressing.”
The fact is I have just always loved cottage cheese. One of my favorite ways to eat it is in the form of Mollie Katzen’s March Hare salad, which she updated for us in our very first issue. Here’s that recipe to download.
Another is my agent Nicole Tourtelot’s Herby Cottage Cheese Salad Toast, featured in this issue about salad-adjacent sandwiches (which includes a delicious veggie sandwich, with eggplant, mozzarella, roasted peppers and pesto). Here are both of those recipes to download.
But the two ways I eat cottage cheese most often: with fresh blueberries for breakfast and with lots and lots of chives, a drizzle of olive oil, and salt and pepper for lunch. It’s the latter that has always made me imagine turning cottage cheese into a salad dressing. I’ve tried several times, with meh results, but now I’ve finally done it right.
And since I’m a bit stuck in a still-tweaking moment with the next two salads I have for you (I got into some trouble with grapes; don’t ask), I thought I’d shoot this dressing out tonight, in case anyone throws together an accidentally boring green salad over the weekend. Let this dressing—which is perfect for clean-out-the fridge/kitchen-sink tossed salads—turn it into a flavor bomb instead.
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*RECIPE: Powerful and Creamy Garlic Chive Protein Dressing
Makes about 1½ cups
For this recipe, which is perfect for lackluster green salads, you should use 4% cottage cheese with a dry curd—my favorites are Good Culture and Breakstone’s. I’ve used Greek yogurt, because I love it, but you could use regular yogurt; you won’t have to thin the mixture as much if you do.
1 cup 4% cottage cheese
¼ cup plain yogurt (I used Greek yogurt; if you use regular, you won’t need to thin it as much)
¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
Zest of ½ lemon (use your microplane)
2 big garlic cloves, cut into pieces (if you are not a garlic fiend, just use one)
3 tablespoon olive oil
3 to 4 tablespoons water (less if you use regular yogurt instead of Greek)
¼ to ½ teaspoon salt
A few grinds of black pepper, if desired.
½ cup chopped fresh chives
Combine all ingredients except the chives in the bowl of a mini food processor and process until very smooth. This could take a couple of minutes. Thin the mixture with 1 tablespoon of water at a time, processing after each addition, until you have a very smooth, slightly thick, but pourable mixture. Taste for salt and pepper; you might want a bit more lemon juice or olive oil. Add the chives and process again, very briefly, to combine.
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Lovely options for the "pre-spring" season when I start thinking about fresh greens.