Julia Child’s Timeless Vinaigrette Helped Me Fall in Love with Salad

For the majority of my life, salad has been my nemesis. Not only do I find chewing on large cuts of leaves to be an unpleasant jaw workout, but I don’t love every vegetable that ends up in salad bowls (yes, I’m talking to you, kale and arugula). Yet, as I make way through my 20s, I’ve discovered a few things that have opened my eyes to the world of delicious and mouthwatering salads, and I’ll never turn my back on them again.

For starters, I began cutting my salad ingredients into smaller pieces. If I’m making a salad at home, I thinly slice the leafy greens before tossing them with the other ingredients. That way, the salad is easier to eat, plus each piece gets more fully coated in the flavorful dressing. Also, here’s a little news flash: salad doesn’t have to be cold. When I use warm ingredients like roasted peppers, sautéed leafy greens and toasted nuts, I feel like I’m coloring outside the box and transforming the conventional cold salad into a more cozy and complex experience.

Most importantly, I escaped my ranch-dressing comfort zone and discovered the acidity and depth of flavors in vinaigrette. At first, I felt like I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. The “rock” was the dressing aisle of the grocery store, where the sheer variety gave me grocery-store anxiety, plus store-bought salad dressing can be a sneaky source of added sugar. The “hard place” was the endless selection of vinaigrette recipes on the internet.

But then I came across this simple and delicious Sauce Vinaigrette from one of America’s most influential celebrity chefs, Julia Child, published in The French Chef Cookbook in 1968 (an updated edition was published in November 2023). Child also demonstrated the recipe on her TV show, The French Chef, drizzling it over mixed greens and a fancy crown of endives. “There’s nothing like a good French dressing,” she said on Season 4 of the show. In fuzzy black and white, I watched her use a spoon to combine all the ingredients in a large bowl, telling viewers that “how much oil you add depends on your taste.” 

With three parts oil to one part wine vinegar, the dressing is just acidic enough to add a kick to your salad while letting the flavors of black pepper, mustard and shallot really shine through. I found her dressing to be perfect for any combination of leafy greens, and I enjoy it most when the salad is topped with salty cheese like feta or goat cheese, something crunchy like toasted walnuts or slivered almonds, and some naturally sweet fruit like strawberries or blueberries.

Finding Child’s vinaigrette has been a lifesaver. Consuming salad more often can offer plenty of health benefits—from higher fiber intake to a healthier gut microbiome. And for a person like me who hasn’t been the biggest salad fan, a go-to vinaigrette like Julia Child’s helps me eat more greens overall. The flavors aren’t rich and overpowering; rather, they complement any and every salad you add the dressing to throughout the week. Not to mention, it’s as easy as shaking the ingredients together in a jar!