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Salad

Salad Dressing Without Eggs

A creamy dressing made with butter, sugar, mustard, cream, vinegar, and cornstarch, suitable for salads.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Salad Dressing Without Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over low heat.

  2. Add sugar, salt, pepper, and mustard; stir until combined.

  3. Pour in the cream or milk and vinegar; mix well.

  4. Thicken the dressing with cornstarch as needed.

Cool and serve

  1. Remove from heat and let cool before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cornstarch
Thickens the dressing as it is heated, giving it body without eggs.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy body to the dressing.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat for mouthfeel and a rich flavor.

The step that matters

Thicken the dressing with cornstarch as needed. Cornstarch thickens only when heated and then held near a simmer, as its starch granules swell and gel. Adding it without heating leaves the dressing thin, while overheating can break the texture. Add it gradually and check consistency as it cooks.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, pepper, cream, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, pepper, cream, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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