This is one of my favorite fall dressings! A 10-minute pear vinaigrette to add a deeper fruity flavor to fall harvest salads that's easy and quick to make. And it only needs 3 ingredients in addition to salt, pepper and olive oil.
Use this pear salad dressing also on roasted butternut squash, and other winter squash, as well as roasted beets or carrots.
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👗 The Importance of the Right Dressing
I say you can have all the makings for a James Beard award-winning salad, but if you dress it with some mediocre dressing you threw together at the last minute, the salad will quickly become forgettable at best, and jarring at worst.
For example, I recently had a lentil salad at a restaurant that could have been amazing. But it missed the mark due to a tart lemon dressing that overwhelmed the flavors of the salad. It needed the rounded depth of sherry vinegar instead of lemon.
This faulty pairing of a vinaigrette made the salad unforgettable for all the wrong reasons.
And really, that's just a crazy mistake.
It's important to consider the salad you're dressing to make sure the dressing will elevate the salad or at the very least complement it. You don't want to see it on someone's blog as an example of a bad dressing pairing. LOL.
For example, I wouldn't use this Thai Peanut Butter Dressing on a salad featuring baby greens. It's too heavy and would drown those fragile greens. But it's perfect on a hardy kale salad, especially when you add apples to the salad.
Conversely, this Lemon Vinaigrette from my cookbook marries well with lots of salads, including tender greens, but might get lost in one with a lot of mustard greens.
🤷♀️ What is a Vinaigrette?
At its simplest, a vinaigrette is any dressing or marinade that uses a salad oil and vinegar as its two major components. It may have garlic, spices, herbs and citrus, and often does, but it's really about an emulsion of oil and vinegar.
The oil used is typically a neutral oil such as safflower, avocado, and olive oil, but can also use a nut oil, like a hazelnut oil.
❤️ Why you'll love this recipe
- Elevates fall salads. This pear salad dressing transports fall salads into star territory, especially if they feature fall and winter vegetables such as butternut squash and beets.
- Goldilocks dressing. There's enough heft to the vinaigrette to hold up to hardy greens, such as kale, chicory and radicchio, but gentle enough for a more tender lettuce.
- Quick. Pears are soft, and easily pureed, making this pear vinaigrette ready in 10 minutes.
- Lasts. It keeps in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks at least. I've even kept it for 3 weeks with success.
- Flexible. Use it as a marinade. I marinate my husband's pork chops in it, but also coat squash and cauliflower with it before roasting.
🧅 Ingredients + Notes
- Pear - Bartlett pears, Bosc pears and Anjou pears all work great. But make sure the pear is ripe since it's puréed in the recipe. Fresh pears are best, meaning unbruised or damaged, and not so soft that they fall apart. Otherwise, the bright pear flavor won't come through in the finished dressing.
- Pear vinegar - if you can't find pear vinegar, use champagne vinegar or white wine vinegar.
- Dijon mustard
- Extra Virgin Olive oil - or other neutral salad oil, such as avocado oil or grapeseed oil.
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links to products and foods I use in my kitchen. This means that at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. To view my entire storefront of recommended kitchen tools and equipment, check out my shop on Amazon.
🔪 Recommended Equipment
- Chef's knife
- Mini chopper (part of a immersion blender set) or Food processor
👩🍳 Preparation Tips
The pear to use in any pear salad dressing should be a fresh pear and fully ripe, but not overripe. You want a juicy pear that purees easily. Press in on the pear around the stem. If it depressed fairly easily, it's ripe.
When peeling the pear, if there is one or two slightly bruised areas, remove them. You don't want that to affect the flavor or appearance of the finished pear vinaigrette.
💡Ideas for Possible Variations
Add minced garlic and / or fresh thyme leaves.
🍽 Ways to Use This Pear Vinaigrette
Salads with that feature sliced pears, apples, pomegranate seeds, persimmon slices, candied walnuts and avocado work great with this vinaigrette. Ditto for any kind of winter hard squash, like butternut. You might just skip the rest of the meal.
Or roast up some beets, and dress it with this vinaigrette. For example, this Smashed Beet recipe with Goat Cheese Dressing could be easily switched up. Just add goat cheese to the vinaigrette in the mini-chopper, and dress the beets with it.
Add some blue cheese to a mini-chopper with the vinaigrette and use it for a cobb salad.
Toss with cooked rice, and roast in the oven to make crispy rice.
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Pear Vinaigrette Recipe
Equipment
- Immersion blender with chopper I use the chopper attachment for this recipe
Ingredients
- 1 ripe Bartlett or Bosc pear peeled and cored, coarsely chopped
- 5 tablespoons pear vinegar or champagne vinegar or rice vinegar
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Instructions
- Throw everything EXCEPT the olive oil into a mini-chopper, or the bowl of the food processor fitted with a metal blade. Whirl around enough to break up the pear.
- Add the olive oil and whirl to completely emulsify, about 1 minute or less.
Gisela duVigneau
I made this vinaigrette and loved it.
We are near Los Gatos, CA, to spend Thanksgiving with family.
This morning was a busy time in our motorhome, making several of your recipes: apple gallett made with puff pastry and puff pastry cheese straws.
They are our contribution to the Thanksgiving feast prepared by my sister and her husband.
Thank you for the recipes.
We wish you a very happy Thanksgiving.
Gisela
The Wimpy Vegetarian
A very very Happy Thanksgiving to you too, Gisela! I'm so happy you liked this vinaigrette so much! I'm so incredibly impressed that you made this and 2 more of my recipes in your motorhome this morning!!! Hugs to you!
Jody
This was/is delish! I had 2 pears from my Grey Bear bag from a couple of weeks ago that finally ripened. Yesterday I made everything as directed using my mini food processor. My hubby is used to a sweeter salad dressing so I added a splash of agave. I made a spinach salad added apples, provolone cheese, some other crunchy vegies from Grey Bear and lastly slivered almonds. Served as a side with salmon. I'm going to do it again tonight with steak and a pork chop. Yummy! Thank you so much!! P.S. Loved the tip about trying it with a piece of lettuce before serving, that helped me know to make adjustments for hubby.
The Wimpy Vegetarian
Yay! I'm so happy to hear this. Your salad combination is making my mouth water. I think I need to make it too :-).
And yes, on the tip for trying it with lettuce, that was a tip from culinary school. We had to make all our own dressing of course, and this was how we tested it. For different kinds of greens it's so interesting how you have to adjust the seasoning and oil/vinegar ratio. And we all have our preferences too!!
Julie Gold
How long will this keep in the refrigerator ? Wanting to prep and get things done early.
The Wimpy Vegetarian
It will keep in the refrigerator for at least a week. I've kept mine in the refrigerator for as long as 2 weeks.