Let’s Get Sauced
Your guide to the tastiest sauces and dressings for summer
Summer cooking is stunningly simple. Just go to the farmer’s market or farm stand, grab whatever looks freshest and most tempting, and do as little as possible to it.
The same goes for proteins, whether it’s fish, chicken, shrimp, or the occasional steak. I marinate briefly or not, so it’s ready when I am, then turn on the grill, and the meal lands on the table with a minimum of fuss and mess. Leaving the kitchen nice and cool (and clean) is a bonus.
To bring everything up a notch (or two), it helps to have an arsenal of cold sauces and dressings at the ready to drizzle or slather onto all this simple food. The best part is that most of these sauces keep well for at least a week, so they can be used multiple times in multiple ways, bringing dishes together quickly and deliciously.
Below, you’ll find some highlights from the archives as well as three new recipes to try out this summer. Make a few of them at once to have on hand for the lazy days ahead. You won’t regret it!
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Sauces and dressings from the archive
Before we get into today’s recipes, here are some favorite sauces and dressings from the Susanality archives.
Garlic Scape Pesto
This garlic scape pesto is a handy condiment that can be swirled into hot or cold soup or heaped onto a sandwich. Adding a spoonful at the end of cooking just about anything (pasta, risotto) adds flavor and a verdant green color, and it’s also great as a quick marinade for fish or chicken or whisked into a vinaigrette (or even green goddess!).
Salsa Macha
This rich, oily condiment made from dried chilis, peanuts, and sesame seeds adds heat and smoky savoriness to everything it touches. I love it on scrambled eggs, roasted vegetables, or in a bowl of soup or my grain bowl du jour, and much more.
Green Goddess Dressing
This riffable recipe is the perfect thing to make if you have an herb garden, which, as you probably know, is something I highly recommend if you have the space. However you tweak it, it can be used as a crudité dip, a sauce for grilled fish or chilled seafood, to make chicken salad, as a sandwich spread, mixed with canned tuna, etc. etc.
Buttermilk-Feta Dressing
This dressing is creamy and a little rich with plenty of tanginess thanks to a combination of buttermilk, feta, lemon, and garlic. You can use it on almost anything, including this little gem salad studded with colorful radishes.
Miso Maple Dressing
White miso’s mild sweetness and slight saltiness make it a wonderful secret weapon in a salad dressing. In this recipe, it’s whisked into an earthy dressing with maple syrup, tahini, lemon juice, and microplaned garlic, resulting in a dressing that’s sturdy enough to stand up to the fibrous nature of kale salad. It would also be excellent drizzled on roasted vegetables or pork tenderloin.
Pickled Shallot Vinaigrette
This is an almost classic vinaigrette, the key difference being that the shallots are lightly pickled by being briefly heated in the vinegar base, which helps to take the raw edge off. This recipe makes a big batch, which can happily live in your fridge (preferably in a glass jar) for a week or so, ready to dress just about anything.
3 new recipes for your repertoire
