One Vintage Base, Endless Variations: The Ultimate Frugal Salad Dressing

It's summertime (or almost)!
Our garden is producing a lot of leafy green stuff for salad-making. 

Have you ever found yourself standing in the salad dressing aisle at the grocery storing, staring at rows and rows of plastic bottles with ingredients that you may or may not be able to pronounce or find in nature? I began my love affair with homemade salad dressings one such shopping afternoon many years ago. I said to myself, "there's got to be a better way to do dressings." 

Long before bottled salad dressings took over our refrigerator shelves, home-cooks relied on dressings made from a handful of basic ingredients, costing pennies to whip up. Lately, I've been diving into my vintage cookbook collection, and I found an early to mid-century salad dressing recipe that reminded me of how magical pantry basics can be.

Is It a Cookbook or an Advertisement?

Today's recipe is for a basic French dressing that has 12 variations (with descriptions for which salad type for each). I found this gem in a 1930s promotional cookbook, The Heinz Salad Book.

Promotional cookbooks have been a popular way over the years for food manufacturers to market their own products. Back in the day, they were mostly small paperbound booklets, gifted or sold in a variety of ways, including proof of purchase mail-in, radio show giveaways, attached or inside of food packaging, at live cooking demonstrations, and by door-to-door salesmen.

In my own life, I can recall small Kraft Foods and Pillsbury paperbound cookbooks. The Pillsbury ones were frequently found at the checkout of the supermarket. Today, many food manufacturers include a large recipe section on their websites. As you can guess, these cookbook-lets and manufacturer recipe sites are used as a marketing tool to entice customers to purchase more of their products. My two daughters are big fans of the Kraft website. They love the "convenience" factor and processed food taste.

So, taking a little detour, here. I love the cover of this cook booklet. The type face is one of many Art Deco fonts. The date of the original printing of this book falls right smack into the period when Art Deco fonts were in high use, from the late 1920s to the late 1930s. Note the extreme verticality of the letters, the use of thick and thin strokes, and the angularity of the "S".

I also want to show you the "centerfold" of the book. The images throughout the rest of the book are black and white photos. However, the center of the book opens up to this gigantic full color display of all of Heinz's products at that time, just in case there was any question whose products the cookbook wanted you to purchase. Their products are "in the pantries of particular people." Now don't you want to be like the other "special" people and have a pantry filled with Heinz products?

Moving on to the recipe . . .

The Base French Dressing (Foundation)

Imagine you're a 1930-something housewife. You're still feeling the pinch of the Great Depression. It's a mid-June afternoon and you're putting a supper together for your family. Your vegetable garden is producing a variety of tender leafy greens and fresh herbs. You want to make a tasty dressing to turn those greens into a lovely side salad to accompany the leftover Hoover stew. The free salad cookbook that you sent away for just arrived in that morning's post. You wipe your hands on your apron and open up the book. There, on the first page is an easy-looking dressing that uses items you already have in your pantry. Your dinner planning is now taken care of.

Ingredients:

1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon paprika
1/4 cup vinegar (cider preferred)
1/2 cup olive oil

In a pint jar with screw-top lid, add all ingredients and shake. Keep refrigerated. Shake well each time you use.

Variations

As I said, there are 12 variations, some that sound tasty, others not so much. But I'll offer them all to you, anyway, in case you're curious or can think of other ways to use the Heinz recipe. Here they are in their vintage glory.

Anchovy Dressing

To foundation recipe, add 2 tablespoons of finely chopped anchovies.

Good with stuffed hard-cook eggs that use finely chopped celery, dash paprika, additional anchovies (mashed), mayonnaise along with egg yolks to fill whites. Arrange stuffed egg halves on lettuce bed or watercress leaves. Serve with Anchovy Dressing.

Chiffonade Dressing

To foundation recipe, add 2 tablespoons chopped parsley, 2 teaspoons chopped onion, 1 hard-cooked egg, chopped, and 1/4 cup chopped cooked beets.

Good on a Romaine salad or cabbage salad.

Chutney Dressing

To foundation recipe, add 1/4 cup finely chopped chutney.

Good on tongue salad or a country club salad (aka Chef Salad).

Honey French Dressing

In foundation recipe, use 1 tablespoon less vinegar, and add 1/8 teaspoon additional paprika and 1 tablespoon honey.

Good on fruit salads or fruit and greens salads.

Ketchup Dressing

To foundation recipe, add 1/4 cup ketchup.

Good on asparagus salad or basic lettuce salad (wedge salad would be classic).

Mustard Dressing

To foundation recipe, add 2 tablespoons prepared mustard.

Good on chicken salad or potato and egg salad.

Piquant Dressing

To foundation recipe, add 1/2 teaspoon prepared brown mustard, 1/8 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce, 1/2 teaspoon onion juice, 2 drops hot sauce.

Good on a thinly sliced Spanish onion salad, in which onion slices have been marinated in a blend of water, vinegar, salt, and sugar. After marinating 1 hour, drain marinade thoroughly, then toss onions with Piquant Dressing. Serve on lettuce, adding chopped parsley.

Roquefort Dressing

To foundation recipe, add 4 tablespoons crumbled Roquefort cheese.

Good on lettuce hearts salad or Romaine salad.

Spinosa Dressing

To foundation recipe, add 2 tablespoons capers, 1 tablespoon chopped stuffed green olives, 1 teaspoon chopped parsley.

Good on tomato sandwiches and jellied ham mousse salad.

Summer Dressing

In foundation recipe, use 1 tablespoon less vinegar and add 3 tablespoons pineapple juice, 3 tablespoons orange juice, and 1 teaspoon sugar.

Good on lettuce and watercress salad and cantaloupe salad.

Tarragon Dressing

In foundation recipe, use tarragon vinegar for this dressing and add 1 hard-cooked egg, chopped very fine.

Good on endive salad and cauliflower salad.

Parisian Dressing

To foundation recipe, add 2 tablespoons chopped green pepper, 2 tablespoons chopped red pepper, 2 tablespoons chopped celery, 1/2 tablespoon chopped onion, and 1/2 tablespoon chopped parsley.

Good on a salad of julienned cabbage, carrots, and green pepper or a lettuce and watercress salad.

These variations and pairings provide a launching point for dreaming up your own varieties. Tonight I'm doing a variation of the Spinosa Dressing. I don't have capers, but I do have stuffed green olives and fresh parsley. I'll be using this dressing on the garden lettuce and grocery store tomato I have. 

After whipping up a batch of the basic French dressing, shop your fridge, garden, and pantry, then create interesting and tasty salads: perhaps a little mayo, sour cream, or plain yogurt for a creamy version; or, do an herb garden-themed dressing with whatever herbs you currently have in the garden or on the windowsill; or, perhaps a mash-up of the honey French and the mustard dressing for a sweet and tangy salad vibe.

The true beauty of a vintage master recipe like this isn't just the nostalgia—it's the flexibility. It teaches us to be resourceful cooks who look at what we already have on hand instead of running out to buy something new. It transforms a simple bowl of greens into something that feels special and intentional.

Your Turn: Are you a fan of making your own salad dressings from scratch, or do you have a favorite vintage family recipe that always makes an appearance on your dinner table? I would love to hear how you customize your salads—let’s swap our favorite kitchen shortcuts in the comments below!

edit: Tonight's salad was really tasty!