Black Olive & Cilantro Dressing on Egg & Avocado Salad

We eat a lot of salad, especially in the summer when I just want to eat lighter meals in the heat. Even though kids are heading back to school and talk of Fall fills the air, the heat will not leave our area for a couple more months. So salads are still on the menu. The best way to keep salads from becoming boring are to change up the dressing. Really salad dressing is the star of any good salad, at the very least an award winning best supporting actor. Making salad dressing is far easier than spending what feels like f-o-r-e-v-e-r reading ingredient labels on the multitudes of commercial dressings (why am I reading the labels? to avoid soy, rancid vegetable oils, hydrogenated oils, added sugars, GMOs, food coloring, chemicals I can't pronounce, preservatives and who knows what else). Plus you can customize your flavors to what you have on hand and what your preferences are. For example I often find I have leftover olives on hand, since few recipes require a full two cups of olives, so I have used these black fleshed beauties to make a brilliantly flavored salad dressing. I've included two options; a lemon based (topping the Egg & Avocado salad) and a lime juice (for a great Tex-Mex flavor) dressing to suite your flavor needs. I don't add any sea salt to this recipe because I use the "juice" in the olive jar/can to provide the saltiness. This entire meal can be on the table in 15 minutes or less, much less if  you have leftover boiled eggs available, if you don't just get those going first and then blend up your dressing, dinner will be ready in no time.

Black Olive and Cilantro Salad Dressing

1/2 cup black olives, pitted with juice

1/3 cup lemon juice, fresh is best (or lime juice for Tex-Mex Variety)

3 cloves fresh garlic

1/4 cup chopped cilantro (plus 1 tbsp fresh oregano for Tex-Mex Variety)

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup avocado oil (or just 1 whole cup of olive oil)

Equipment: wide mouth mason jar (quart works best to keep splashes down but pint works as well) , immersion blender

Place olives with olive "juice", lemon (or lime) and garlic into a wide mouth mason jar. Submerge your immersion blender and whirl away until olives and garlic is finely chopped. Add cilantro and oils then whirl again until everything is blended. You can store either in a the mason jar or transfer to your favorite re-used glass salad dressing bottle. This recipes make more than enough for just this one salad. When using at a later date I pull the salad dressing out when I first start making my plates and allow it to come to room temperature before shaking (alternately you can run some warm water over your glass bottle). It'll last at least a month stored in the fridge, but probably longer (it is always gone before we get that far).

Makes 1 1/2 cups, estimated 2 tbsp per serving

Nutrition Facts: Serving Size    2 Tablespoons,   Total Servings   12 (makes 1 1/2 cups),   Calories    178,   Carbohydrate   1g,   Fiber   0g,   Sugar   0g,   Fat   20g,   Protein   0g (calculations from myfitnesspal.com using the brands in my kitchen, information may vary) Nutrition information does not include salad, see below.

Simple Salad  ~Egg & Avocado~

2 Avocados

8 Pastured Boiled Eggs

4 thin slices Red Onion

6 cups Red Leaf Lettuce

Sea Salt, Pepper, or Cayenne (optional)

Cilantro to Garnish (optional)

Boil Eggs. Prepare your plates (or platter if you prefer) with your lettuce. Slice your avocado to desired size and arrange on top of the lettuce. Thinly slice the onion to desired size and arrange on top of the lettuce. Peel your eggs and slice to desired size then arrange on top of the lettuce.  Season as desired. Garnish with cilantro. It seems really silly to write directions for assembling a "simple salad" but there you go. If you find it hard to have a salad without some meat on it, bacon goes exceptionally well, I just wanted my meal to take less than 15 minutes and I didn't have any prepared ahead of time.

Nutrition Facts: Serving Size    1/4 of recipe,   Total Servings   4,   Calories    327,   Carbohydrate   5g,   Fiber   5g,   Sugar   2g,   Fat   21g,   Protein   15g (calculations from myfitnesspal.com using the brands in my kitchen, information may vary) Nutrition information does not include salad dressing, see above.

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Comments

[Michelle]

This looks fabulous! I always make my own salad dressings -- we are going to have to try this! Pinning! Thanks for linking this up with us at Foodie Fridays!

[Marla]

I love salads and this dressings sounds divan. Will pin & twitt. Thanks for sharing on Real Food Fridays.

[Leah Rae Verde]

Michelle & Marla, Thank you so much for stopping by, I hope you enjoy the dressing!