Making your own salad dressing is one of the easiest ways to swing the healthiness pendulum back in your kitchen’s favor. You have complete control over the ingredients that go into a homemade dressing, so it’s usually tastier and more cost effective than storebought. This homemade Thousand Island Dressing is a versatile dressing for sandwiches and salads. Plus, it’s super easy to make in about 10 minutes with ingredients you probably already have!
Thousand island dressing is typically made with mayo, but using a strained yogurt gets you the same creaminess with less fat. With a base like our homemade yogurt, that means there’s plenty of good, healthy bacteria cultures in there too. If you have to have this dressing with mayo, just substitute this for the same amount of yogurt, also maybe think about making your own mayo! That is definitely an upcoming Craft & Process recipe.
Definitely feel free to adapt this recipe to your own tastes and what you have in the kitchen. You can increase or decrease any of these ingredient amounts to your liking. Be sure to taste as you go and have fun.
Another shameless tease: we are currently working towards a 100% homemade Reuben Sandwich. We’re talking homemade rye bread, your own corned beef, house-pickled sauerkraut, maybe swiss cheese (?), and this thousand island dressing. We are close to perfecting some of these ingredients, and this recipe for homemade thousand island dressing is the first in the process! That’s right, by sandwich weight we are like 3% of the way there. Get excited as we post more of our recipe towards this delicious goal. Once we pull it off, I think it will be the most satisfying Reuben sandwich ever!
Beyond the obvious aforementioned Reuben sandwich, Thousand Island Dressing goes really well with simple garden salads. The creamy tomato flavor is a strong one, so if your salad has lots of flavorful ingredients, I would stick to a simpler vinaigrette. But if you want to literally “dress” up a simple garden salad, this thousand island dressing is a great pick.
Bonus points: use your own homemade pickled cucumbers for this recipe. Either a good quick pickled cucumber or a real fermented cucumber will be tasty in this dressing. For more pickling inspiration, check out our pickled beet greens and pickled onions post.
- 2 cup yogurt thickened
- ¼ cup ketchup or tomato paste
- ¼ cup finely chopped red onion
- ¼ cup finely chopped pickles
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ tsp ground pepper
- 1 Tb apple cider Vinegar
- 1 tsp honey omit if using ketchup
-
Combine ingredients in a mixing bowl and season to taste with additional salt, pepper, vinegar, and honey.