Dijon Mustard Dressing

This Dijon mustard dressing is the 5-minute homemade vinaigrette you’ll make on repeat: tangy, balanced, and made with pantry ingredients. Skip bottled dressing and whisk this up instead!

This Dijon mustard dressing is as easy as they come. Really! There’s no lemon juice to squeeze and no garlic to mince: all you do is mix together a few ingredients that are probably already in your pantry.

The flavor of this vinaigrette is one of my absolute favorites: it’s perfectly balanced, tangy and savory. It takes only 5 minutes to put together this easy homemade salad dressing and I promise, it will become your new go-to!

5 Star Reader Review

“Perfect dressing for a spring salad that I was serving with crab cakes. I didn’t have maple syrup, so used local honey, and it was delicious!!” -Nancy

Ingredients in This Dijon Mustard Dressing

One of the keys to eating healthy in the long term: making your own salad dressing! Before I started cooking a lot, I had a collection of salad dressings in my fridge that were from the dark ages. Seriously, who knows when some of these dressing bottles came to be!

Since that time, I’ve stopped buying dressing altogether and started making it. It’s easy to do and you know exactly what’s in it: no preservatives or sky high sodium. Here’s what you’ll need here:

Dijon mustard: It adds tangy flavor and it’s a natural emulsifier, so it gives this dressing its creamy body. Use a smooth, classic Dijon (not whole-grain) for the right texture.
White wine vinegar: Bright, clean, and a little softer than red wine vinegar. You can use apple cider vinegar in a pinch.
Maple syrup: This rounds out the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard without making the dressing sweet. Honey is a great swap.
Extra-virgin olive oil: This is the high quality oil I use in all my salad dressing recipes.

The Secret to a Dressing That Stays Creamy

An emulsion is when a vinaigrette dressing becomes creamy and all one texture. When you’re using olive oil and vinegar, you may notice that they can tend to separate. If you whisk up your emulsion correctly, it will stay creamy as it sits. (Often when storing in the refrigerator, it will separate: so you can re-whisk it prior to serving.)

Here’s what to do to make an emulsion that stays creamy:

Use a medium sized bowl. Believe it or not, we’ve had issues using too small of a bowl when whisking a dressing. You need enough room that the whisk can move vigorously back and forth.
Whisk the olive oil in 1 tablespoon at a time. The gradual adding of olive oil is what allows the oil to seamlessly integrate. You can also drizzle it in gradually, but we find it easier to add 1 tablespoon and then whisk, then add another and whisk again.

10 Salads to Try With Dijon Mustard Dressing

This Dijon mustard dressing is so quick to make, it’s our new go-to! Of course, we have lots of homemade healthy salad dressings that we love. But this one might be the simplest! Another bonus: it’s a vegan salad dressing, too. Here are a few salads where it would work well or easily replace the dressing listed in the recipe:

Asparagus Salad: Filled with sauteed asparagus, radishes, feta cheese, and lemon.
Apple Salad: A versatile salad that works with any meal!
Arugula Salad: This simple arugula salad would be fantastic with this easy dressing.
Spinach Salad: Trade Dijon dressing for balsamic vinaigrette here.
Fennel Orange Salad: The tang of this Dijon vinaigrette would work in place of the Citrus Vinaigrette here!
Beet Salad: The Dijon dressing works with beets too!
Nicoise Salad: Shortcut the dressing in this main dish salad!
Strawberry Salad: This green salad would be just as good with Dijon dressing.
Blackberry Salad: Dijon dressing works with berries, too!
Greek Pasta Salad: This would even work in a pasta salad.

How to Store It

This dressing keeps refrigerated for at least 2 weeks. The olive oil will solidify when cold, so pull it out about 10 minutes before serving and let it come to room temperature. Give it a quick whisk or shake before pouring.

Dietary Notes

This Dijon mustard dressing recipe is vegetarian, vegan, plant-based, dairy-free, and gluten-free.