My Secret to the Best Blue Cheese Dressing
As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Best Blue Cheese Dressing
I grew up eating only a few salad dressings that weren’t a vinaigrette. I’m Italian and we only ate oil and vinegar on our nightly salad. When we did venture away from that it was blue cheese dressing when dining out.
My family believed that bottled dressings weren’t good enough or healthy enough, and frankly, they were salad snobs. Most of the time the blue cheese dressing was served with the classic wedge salad, a creation from the 1950’s, where people weren’t afraid to eat bacon, cheese and sour cream. Then the 80’s came and people started getting nervous about fat. I never bought into that, but I do admit to pulling away from blue cheese dressing for a while.
Lately I’ve seen the return of the wedge and I started ordering it again as my hefty starter, but believe it or not I never made a wedge at home, until now, because this is my first and best blue cheese dressing. I do mention at the end of this post that you can make a wedge with a blue cheese vinaigrette as an easier option. I love both.
Blue cheese dressing is the epitome of salt, fat and acid or it should be. In fact, my secret to the very best of the blue cheese dressing (aside from a nice blue) is adding enough acid. I took three routes using worcestershire, lemon and vinegar. You can mix those up if you like, or skip the lemon and add more vinegar, but I had all three, so I used all three. I wanted to use a champagne vinegar but was out and the apple cider vinegar worked liked a charm.
The key will be to taste and make sure the dressing is a little bit tart and exciting. A good blue cheese shouldn’t be bland like a ranch dressing. Also know the blue cheese taste will become more profound as it chills.
What Blue Cheese Should You Use to Make the Best Blue Cheese Dressing?
There are three kinds of blue cheeses.
- Creamy
- Crumbly
- Firm
Crumbly blue works best like a Maytag or gorgonzola, which is what I used here.
Gorgonzola is an Italian blue cheese with a milder flavor than the very pungent blue cheese, although sometimes you may find a very strong one. It’s great for eating by itself, pairing with apple or pear slices or topping on purple potatoes.
Make the blue cheese dressing jar a day or so ahead of your next dinner party and cut up smaller wedges and serve with tomato, bacon, and hard boiled egg for a classic or make this festive wedge if it’s holiday time. If you want to add extra color, radishes are nice as well as pomegranates.
Blue Cheese Vinaigrette.
One more note: Some days I like a simple blue cheese vinaigrette. This is perfect for the no mayo camp. Just mix olive oil, vinegar, dijon mustard) and add small crumbles of blue cheese.
More recipes using blue cheese from Spinach Tiger
More Salad Dressings from Spinach Tiger
Homemade Blue Cheese Dressing
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise.
- 1/4 cup whole milk
- 2 tablespoons sour cream
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce.
- 1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons blue cheese or gorgonzola cheese crumbled, divided – See notes
- 1 tablespoons white vinegar or apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- Salt and pepper.
Instructions
- Mix together mayonnaise, milk, sour cream, worcestershire sauce, 1/3 cup blue cheese, and half vinegar, salt and pepper in blender.
- Taste for acidity and add more vinegar as necessary.
- Add in remaining blue cheese for a chunky dressing. You can choose to add all blue cheese to the blender if you want your dressing completely smooth.
- Taste, as some blue cheese is stronger than others and you may need to add more.
- Refrigerate at least four hours, ideally overnight.
Notes
Please follow me on instagram. If you make this recipe, please tag me #spinachtiger.
If you love this recipe, please give it five stars. It means a lot. xoxo
This is delicious. I love blue cheese dressing. I’ve used cream and whole milk. Just depends how rich I want it. So easy to make, Thanks!!
Glad you liked it. Thank you.
There is no mention of heavy cream in ingredients, but there is in instructions.
I meant the milk. Thanks for pointing that out.
The recipe says whole milk not heavy cream am I missing something