Posted on 08/22/2008 4:36:07 PM PDT by Sonny M
Here is the question, in terms of both safety and taste.
Can you cook or fry with salad dressing?
I know you can marinate with some oil type salad dressings (alot of folks use italian salad dressing to marinate chicken, steaks and pork chops, etc).
However, can you actually fry foods using say, creamy salad dressings? Like creamy italian or ranch style dressing?
Or, also a weird but strange question, if you are eating something and pour creamy style dressing over it, can you put it into the fridge and reheat (probably via microwave) later on and eat it again, safely?
I know this is odd, but me and a few friends were talking this one over, and the question of why can't salad dressing be using to cook with or creamy style dressing, why can't it be warm or served over hot food and stuff like that came up.
If any freepers out there do use salad dressing, especially creamy style italian dressing for cooking or frying or some other unconventional cooking way, please post and let me know, I really appreciate any and all answers you can provide.
In addition to what others have said — various oils smoke at different temperatures. Chances are the oils used in commercial salad dressings can’t get hot enough to fry properly, without smoking.
I'm not familiar with Sous Vide, I'll look into it.
no problema!
I scoff at health risk.
I've been told that despite my chain smoking and booze guzzling ways, I'm the best looking 60 year old anyone can remember.
Which would be great except that I'm 31 years old.
lol.
I'm not a weed smoking guy, but one of the ideas I was having might make a few question my sanity.
Creamy salad dressings are really a mixture of oil, water and protein ingredients (egg, milk, cheeses) emulsified (blended at high speed) so as not to seperate in the bottle. Not really suitable for frying, due to different heat/boiling characteristics of oil, cream, and eggs. You wouldn’t be able to get to a very high temperature, as one does with pure oil, without burning or carmelizing the non-oil ingredients.
Would be like trying to fry with cream.
This is actually the most important thing.
See, me and my buddies saw something, an idea on the web.
Bacon cereal.
This guy, after frying his bacon, chopped it up and put in a bowl....like it was cereal.
The added blue cheese like it was milk.
We decided we are going to try the same thing, but use bacon flavored ranch dressing instead of blue cheese.
The question was, if there is to much, can we put it back in the fridge, and reheat it later on, without getting toxic food poisoning?
One of us actually had the idea of marinating the bacon in italian salad dressing, then frying it, and then later on adding creamy style italian dressing to it after it was finished, but we don't know if thats possible, and if that can be stored either for reheating purposes.
I'm working very very hard to put this theory to the test......along with one other great idea, that everything goes better with bacon.
So far, all is good with the world, and my faith in God is being rewarded.
You should just give it a try. If frying, I’d think you’d have the non-fatty ingredients (like vinegar) to deal with. I frequently add salad dressings to heated sauces and casseroles, but that’s as much cooking as I do with it.
It is high in protein and lower in calories than cream, but has lots of flavor and texture. I have made some amazing salad dressings with it. Add dill and you've got a cucumber dressing. Add your favorite fatty bottled dressing (like Paul Newman's Creamy Caesar) to extend it and cut calories. My favorite is to take a cup of kefir, add a couple tablespoons of mayo, a table spoon of prepared horseradish, pressed garlic, some favorite herbs and salt and pepper.
The other thing kefir does well is marinate bland chicken breast tenders. Just let it sit in the kefir for an hour, salt and pepper and dredge in panko crumbs and fry over a not-so-hot burner. Very nice and easy.
Thats definatley one idea I have set.
I just wasn't sure if that was doable.
The other one, the bigger one, the crazy one, was to fry some bacon up (without using any dressing or anything, fry it up on its own).
After its cooked, chop it up into bits and pieces, and then slather that bad boy with bacon flavored ranch dressing.
AKA heart attack in a bowl.
The question was, would the heat of the bacon turn the ranch dressing bad or not, and also, could this be placed back in the fridge and reheated at a later time in the microwave?
One of my friends had the idea of marinating the bacon in italian salad dressing (the non creamy kind) over night, then frying it the next day, and adding creamy style italian dressing to it then, kind of like a twisted version of a bacon salad, minus all the veggies with the natural can you reheat it questions still in place.
That sounds pretty weird, but I’d like to know how it turns out.
It is good, very very good.
Really? Post the recipe dude!
It came out really good, right now, I'm taking some bacon and marinating it over night in a ziplock bag with italian salad dressing, tomorrow, I'll fry it, and chop it up, put it in a bowl and pour creamy style italian dressing over it.
The only question now.....is should we add butter to the whole thing.
Today I had it with just bacon and ranch dressing (bacon flavored ranch dressing of course). Tomorrow, I might add some garlic butter along with the creamy style italian dressing.
The lesson here, bacon goes great with salad dressing.
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