Creamy Italian Dressing
Homemade Creamy Italian Dressing is zesty, flavorful, and easy to make...a delicious topping for a crisp green salad or your favorite pasta salad!
For more creamy salad dressings, you might also enjoy Creamy Feta Dressing, Homemade Ranch Dressing, Champagne Vinaigrette, or Avocado Dressing.
Once a week or so, my goal is to serve salad for dinner. Now don't get me wrong, that salad is typically a hearty one topped with some sort of protein -- taco-seasoned ground beef, marinated chicken breast, diced ham and hard-boiled eggs, or even broiled salmon. But at any rate, it's a salad, loaded with as many veggies as I can cram in there and always drizzled with a yummy homemade dressing.
As a result, I have quite a few homemade dressings in the ol' repertoire by this point. I've shared most of them here over the years, but one that I hadn't posted yet is this zippy, yummy Creamy Italian Dressing!
My "Better than Olive Garden" Homemade Italian Dressing is THE most popular homemade salad dressing recipe on my site. Y'all seem to love it, and so does my family. So it's only natural that awhile back, I felt challenged to put a new spin on it...to see if I could create another dressing that was slightly different but just as delicious.
And the good news is? I think I did! My family went crazy for this homemade Creamy Italian Dressing, much more so than I was expecting.
Ingredients
This recipe has the tang of a regular, vinaigrette-type Italian Dressing, but with a smooth creaminess that makes it just a little more decadent. So what's in it?
- Olive oil, sour cream, and mayonnaise. Weird sounding combo, huh? But it gives just the right consistency and creaminess to this recipe. The key is allowing the dressing plenty of time to chill so that the flavor of the mayo is mellowed out by the other ingredients.
- Vinegar. This dressing gets it acidity from a blend of red wine vinegar and white vinegar.
- Freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Adds nice flavor and body to the dressing.
- Dijon mustard. A little bit goes a long way.
- Honey. Just a touch. (I explain why it's necessary at all below.)
- Italian herbs and spices. Namely, basil, parsley, oregano, garlic salt, onion powder, and pepper.
An Homage to Seven Seas Creamy Italian
If you grew up in the '80s, odd are there was a bottle of Seven Seas Creamy Italian Dressing in your fridge. So I took that memory and that concept and tweaked my popular regular Italian Dressing recipe to come up with this variation.
The Seven Seas Creamy Italian was definitely on the sweeter side, whereas the honey in this recipe is primarily included to curb the dressing's acidity.
That being said, you should always taste your dressing once everything is blended and add a bit more honey to taste, if desired. Or for a more Seven Seas-esque dressing, feel free to increase the amount of honey by a good bit (or substitute sugar instead).
So who's ready to enjoy a big ol' main course salad for lunch or dinner? Or a side salad would be great drizzled with this dressing as well. My kids even love it as a dip for carrots and other raw veggies!
However you choose to enjoy it, I hope this Creamy Italian Dressing is a hit at your house, too.
Helpful Tips, Tricks, & Equipment
- This dressing MUST be refrigerated for several hours before serving to allow the flavors to blend...the longer, the better. Because until it has a chance to chill, the overpowering flavor will be mayonnaise.
- I prefer making homemade Italian dressing using both red wine vinegar and white wine vinegar. I think the combination provides a nice balance of flavor and acidity. That being said, you may choose to use a full quarter cup of one or the other. Or if you have champagne vinegar on hand, it's also tasty in this dressing.
- In order to ensure that this dressing is thoroughly emulsified, it's best to make it in a mini food processor or a blender, as opposed to whisking it in a bowl or shaking it in a jar.
- We've got a ton of yummy homemade salad dressings on the site...check them out here!
More Main Course-Worthy Salads
Creamy Italian Dressing
Ingredients
- ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
- ⅓ cup sour cream
- 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
- 3 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan
- 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- Squeeze of honey
- ¾ teaspoon garlic salt
- ¾ teaspoon dried parsley
- ¾ teaspoon dried basil
- ¼ teaspoon onion powder
- ⅛ teaspoon dried oregano
- Pinch of red pepper flakes
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Measure ingredients into the bowl of a mini food processor (or blender). Process until well-blended and emulsified. Taste and adjust seasonings, adding more honey, salt, and/or pepper if necessary.
- Transfer to a jar or container, cover, and refrigerate for at least 8 hours (or overnight) to allow flavors to blend. Shake before serving.
Equipment Needed
Video
Nutrition
Has anyone made this using a hand-held emersion blender?
An immersion blender should work fine, Lorr! I would suggest putting the ingredients in a jar that has extra space at the top so that the blender's end can be immersed without the dressing spilling over the top. 🙂
Thank you so much for your reply. Your directions are always so thorough and explicit (anticipating all possible problems) and that’s such a huge help in getting a successful outcome. It’s truly appreciated. Looking forward to making a salad dressing for the first time. And I guess it would help if I spelled “immersion” correctly (I knew it didn’t look right. Where is spellcheck when you really need it?) 😄
What a kind comment, Lorr. 🙂 I'm so happy to have had you following along all these years!
The taste of vinegar was overpowering. I added some more of everything except the two vinegars and it still tastes like vinegar but it is not as overpowering. May be I did something wrong or maybe it is just my taste but I do not like this dressing at all.
Sorry to hear that, Hawk. If you added additional amounts of all of the other ingredients yet your dressing still tasted too vinegar-y, I suspect it was due to the particular vinegar that you used. 🙁
Husband raved about this dressing. Never buying dressing from the store again. I even doubled the recipe because it was so good.
Absolutely the best Creamy Italian Dressing I have made. I did add to packets of Equal and Garlic Powder not salt. Hubby tasted it and said delicious!
By far the best creamy Italian we have made and I have tried many. In fact, one of my top salad dressings of any type. So much better than anything from the supermarket as well. This is now in the rotation.
I LOVE this salad dressing! I like a little spice so I added a pinch of cayenne and red chili flakes as well as 1/4 tsp smoked paprika. It is a MUST for salads in our house. Thank you for posting!!!
Delicious and so fresh tasting!
This dressing is fabulous, I made it this week and my husband and I loved it!!
Hm, maybe I should have used light olive oil. Evoo was overpowering 😕
Sorry to hear that, Karen! It definitely depends on the EVOO you use. You are going to taste the olive oil in a dressing, so make sure you like the flavor of the one you use! 🙂
This is easily my favorite dressing of all time. I was skeptical of the Dijon mustard and sour cream additions at first, but this whole thing just blew me away. Has a nice bite yet subtle at the same time. Thanks for posting this!
This is a fantastic salad dressing. It is the closest I have come to the Wish Bone bottled that I used to love. I did do a little experimenting with it the second time I made it. I used 2 tbl Parmesan, 2 tbl more olive oil, 3 tbl red wine winegar, 1 tbl white vinegar, and I used 1`/4 cup whole milk as I like a more pourable style dressing. It was absolutely fabulous and one I will make often. Many thanks for the recipe!
Delicious! Thank you for a great recioe😊
The best ever. there’s an old Italian restaurant in our town that serves this dressing and I’ve been trying to recreate it for years. This is the winner.Thanks
The Creamy Italian Dressing is the best homemade dressing I've had. Made it last night for the first time, had a dinner guest and both he and my husband said it's the dressing they've ever had. So I guess we give it 5 stars.
Yay, Deb...I'm so happy to hear that! Thanks for taking the time to let me know. 🙂