I love a good caesar salad. After that it's usually bleu cheese. I do fancy a good vinegarette at times.

Wow, how has no one mentioned thousand island? You never can go wrong with thousand island. There was a bottled thousand island sauce that contained bacon bits, I think it's still being sold.

Normally when I go out and such, Italian or any vinigrette is my choice. Not a big fan of creamy Italian though. I just feel like I'm getting fatter when I go creamy.

I prefer my Thousand Island on a sandwich, but I'll take it on a salad with 2 conditions: 1) it's very thick & 2) it's very chilled.

Wow, I thought everyone loved bleu cheese. I'm happy to see there are others who think it's barfy too!

My favorite brand is Brianna's. I've tried and loved almost all of them.

The only Newman's I've liked is the honey mustard. The ones I hated - the flavors seemed surprisingly artificial despite them being all natural. YMMV.

2 parts olive oil
1 part white vinegar
a tablespoon of Dijon mustard
garlic
a little herbes de Provence
salt
pepper

The Newman's honey mustard has just become a favorite at our house. Just discovered recently, but it's quite good I think for bottled dressing.

Salad dressing? What's that?

Seriously, when I do indulge in salad dressing at home, I either just toss some olive oil and vinegar over the greens or use brand name Litehouse Blue Cheese. It's found near Marie's, in stores that carry it. Not all do. I try for canola oil as main ingredient instead of soybean oil, but that's just me.

Now--suppose I'm at a steak house and they are known for their blue cheese dressing--everyone knows that in that setting, salad dressings have no calories.

Sometimes at home I put blue cheese crumbles over lettuce. That works too (usually).

Do you mix them together or drizzle separately? Would be nice (and healthy!) if I tried this & liked it ^

Also, has anyone tried the new dressing SPRITZERS? I have not, but in theory it's a decent idea... Esp when I think of my brother in law; when he finishes his salad there is still a quarter cup of dressing on the bottom of the plate/bowl People don't realize how many calories and fat are really in dressings. Just think of salad bars with the dressing containers that have HUGE LADLES in them

The spritzers are surprisingly effective. We've been using them for a few months. It's hard to believe the calorie count, but they are very tasty.

If I am eating salad at home, I use balsamic vinegar, no oil. In a restaurant, if I am with colleagues or on a date, I will order some kind of a vinegarette. If I am with people who I don't worry will judge me I go for ranch.

I agree with the OP - ranch never really tastes the same when you keep it at home. I am particularly fond of the peppercorn ranch dressing served at Max & Erma's.

Besides assorted vinegarettes and ranch, I am very anti-dressing. ESPECIALLY when it comes to bleu-cheese and thousand island.

raspberry vinigrette does it for me.

Do you end up using a lot less on your salad?

Oh yeah. I'll pump it 10-12 times, but the amount I end up using is well below what I would dump from a regular bottle because it's distributed so much better as well as much easier to control. Too bad they can't find a way to create a thousand island spray.

When I was in high school too many years ago, I worked for a local (regionally famous) restaurant in Western NY (Olean, NY to be exact) called the Castle. It was owned by an Italian family who owned an adjacent hotel and a couple of restaurants in the area, amongst other things.

They were famous for their Loretto Salad Dressing. The Castle is long gone, but someone is still selling the dressing in Olean area grocery stores.

I recently found a recipe for it that's pretty darn close to the real thing that I remember. Thought I'd share this interesting dressing recipe. When I worked on the salad table in the kitchen, one way we used to serve salads was to top it with Loretto, then add some Gorgonzola or blue cheese on top. Give this a shot...

You might find the amount of worcestshire might be too much... adjust for your taste. Also, add the optional cheese. I used a combo of Romano and Parmesan. I think it is required to be more authentic to what they made.

Loretto Salad Dressing

* 1 cup mayonnaise
* 1/2 cup tomato juice
* 1 tsp worcestshire sauce
* 2 dashes hot pepper sauce
* 1 small clove of garlic crushed (or garlic powder)
* 1/2 tsp salt
* 1/8 tsp pepper

Directions:

1. Mix all ingredients.
2. Blend well.
3. Add Romano cheese if desired.

A good ceasar dressing is my fave, and I'm definitely in the "a little salad with my dressing" camp, as my waistline will attest.