Give Your Salad Dressing A Briny Kick With A Splash Of Pickle Juice

The winning ingredient for tangy and herbaceous salad dressing is pickle juice. Substituting the brine for some of the vinegar brings complex and developed flavors to the most basic dressing. In a typical salad dressing, herbs, spices, salt, and garlic are added to the oil and vinegar to create flavor. Pickle juice is already infused with everything from dill, black peppercorn, garlic, ground coriander, mustard seed, and even sugar for a sweet pickle. Both sweet or dill pickle juice work well in salad dressing, so it comes down to preference and how sweet or salty you like it. (Dolly Parton makes her coleslaw salad with chopped dill pickles and sweet pickle juice for the best of both worlds.) 

A classic vinaigrette uses a 3-1 ratio of oil to vinegar (or fat to acid), and you can use the same rule for a pickle juice vinaigrette or dressing, but substitute half of the vinegar for pickle juice. While pickle juice packs a punch, it is less acidic than vinegar because it's diluted with water and the pickling process mellows the acidity. Using both maintains the tang from the vinegar and adds the flavor from the pickle juice. 

There are two steps in preparing a dressing with pickle juice that can make or break the recipe. The first is to use a blender, or be ready to shake that jar or whisk until your arm gets tired, since the added water in pickle juice makes it even harder to emulsify in oil than vinegar. Most importantly, you may need to lower the amount of added salt to accommodate the pickle's salinity.

Because the pickle juice marinates for so long with the herbs, spices, and other added ingredients, the flavors are stronger than in a fresh vinegar dressing, so use it in salads that benefit from a bit of extra pizzazz. A Greek salad tastes even better with a tzatziki-inspired dressing with pickle juice and yogurt. Ranch salad dressing made with sweet pickle juice instead of lemon creates an extra tangy pickle ranch. Everyone will wonder why your tuna salad tastes so good when you use pickle juice instead of lemon, and it also brightens up potato or pasta salad.

Cucumbers may be the standard on the supermarket pickle shelf, but other tangy veggies can elevate your dressing. For a spicier dressing, add the brine of pickled hot peppers — which happen to be Sunny Anderson's favorite powerhouse ingredient. Pickled onions add a bit of sharpness, while beets add a subtle sweetness and earthiness. With so many pickle recipes, pickle juice offers nearly endless options for enhancing a salad dressing.