Panera Bread Greek Salad Dressing

I love making a good salad and it’s even better when you make the dressing yourself, instead of using store bought. I recently checked out the Panera Bread cookbook from the library and wanted to give a couple of their recipes a try since I love their restaurant.

Most Greek salads have olives, red onion slices and tomatoes, but I kept mine simple with just the feta cheese. I loved how simple this was to make. Since I used dried herbs I was worried about the flavor, but it still tasted really good. As hubby says – “I feel like this is one of those restaurant quality taste that I would pay for”, and I have to agree, it’s just cheaper to make it yourself. This one is going in my keeper file.

Panera Bread Greek Salad Dressing
(Adapted from The Panera Bread Cookbook)

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½ cup red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons garlic, minced
2 teaspoons shallot, minced
2 teaspoons fresh oregano, finely chopped (I used dried)
2 teaspoons fresh basil, chiffonade (I used dried)
1 tablespoon Dijon or whole-grain mustard
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 ½ cups extra-virgin olive oil

Combine all ingredients except oil in a medium mixing bowl with a wire whisk.

Once ingredients are combined, slowly pour in the olive oil while whisking to form an emulsion.