Garlic & Ginger Soy Dressing – $1.02 for 10+ servings

One of my favorite things to make is dressing. I call it dressing, but really, these types of sauces can be used for just about anything. You can use it as salad dressing, dipping sauce for whatever, or even sautéed with ingredients on the stove.

I generally don’t buy most store-bought dressings any more for these 4 reasons.

1. It’s cheaper

2. It tastes better because it’s fresh

3. You can customize the flavor to your preferences

4. You know exactly what’s going into them (no preservatives)

Here’s a breakdown of how to make super simple Asian style dressing/sauce.

Take a hunk of ginger root and grate it with a grater, or even better, a microplane. Do the same thing for a few cloves of garlic. You can skip this part, but I love a little hint of orange in my sauce. Take an orange or clementine and scrape some of the zest off.

Put all the grated ingredients in a blender if you’d like this to be mixed. I prefer using a magic bullet for for something this easy, but use whatever you want. You could even just whisk it if you want.

If you would like to use orange juice, squeeze the juice from the orange right in the blender. Then add at least 1/4 cup or more of oil and a few tablespoons of soy sauce. If you have sesame oil, put some in too! It’s amazing! I also put a few teaspoons of honey in my sauce. If you don’t have honey, you can put a tiny bit of sugar too. Feel free to leave this step out.

I like it blended because it really seems to pull all of the flavors together for an even taste. When you blend it, it should look something like this:

Taste it before you serve it. If it’s way too salty or too strong, add some more oil or honey. Adjust it to your own preference. If you use a magic bullet to blend it, you could even keep it in the container and then when you’re ready to use it again, give it a spin in the bullet.

Hunk o’ Ginger – $.92 ($.46)
Head o’ Garlic – $.69 ($.11)
Clementine – $.20
Olive Oil & Soy Sauce – ~$.25