This is a recipe for salad dressing.

It is a salad dressing, but it is also the salad dressing in my house. The House Dressing, made in-house to drizzle and pour atop all of my house-made salads. Like a salad bar. Except instead of trying not to bang my face on the sneeze guard to reach the artichoke hearts, I am pulling out whatever random things that need using up in my fridge. (And it’s not $9/lb.)

Homemade dressing seems like this overly complicated thing to do when you can just buy a bottle. But! A simple vinaigrette is an excellent Adult thing to do to help you eat more vegetables. This is excellent both for your health and for those sad radishes in your crisper drawer you bought to fancy up Taco Tuesday but then you forgot about because you had guac and then forgot about anything else. You are saving money eating the food you already have, wasting less food, and purchasing less single-use plastic! Making your own salad dressing is basically saving the world. Oh, and it tastes better too.

I always have this dressing on hand because I always have the ingredients on hand. Both smooth and grainy mustards make an appearance, plus real maple syrup and a punchy 2:1 ratio of oil to vinegar. Bright and smooth and mildly sweet, it’s a lovely all-purpose vinaigrette recipe that loves everything from arugula to leftover salmon, quinoa bowl to kale. I love it over lentils, and it’s a great 3pm snack poured over some chopped up cherry tomatoes and avocado.

You can just shake it all up in a jar like I did here, but honestly I 100% used a mason jar for the picture. I use this OXO Salad Dressing Shaker. Do you need to purchase a specific tool to shake up some salad dressing? Certainly not. But the ability to measure the ingredients right in the jar means less mess, less dirty dishes, and it’s just easier. If something is easy, I’m more likely to do it. (I am lazy.) Totally worth the $10–it pays for itself when you make yourself a salad instead of buying one.