How To Sweeten Vegan Salad Dressing In A Pinch

While many salad dressings are vegetarian, a surprising number of them aren't vegan. We aren't just talking about green goddess dressing or buttermilk ranch, which contain animal products like eggs, buttermilk, or mayonnaise. Unfortunately many oil based dressings aren't vegan either; vinaigrette recipes are often sweetened with honey, which is decidedly not vegan. Honey is an animal product because it's made by bees and can promote unethical farming and harvesting practices including killing the queen bee and replacing her.

So, if you're going to whip up vegan salad dressing, the best honey swap is agave nectar. Extracted from the plant that also gives us the beginnings of tequila and mezcal, agave nectar is as plant based as you can get. It also provides a more neutral sweetness than maple syrup, another plant-sap sweetener but one which has pronounced tasting notes that might overpower your salad dressing. Why not just substitute honey for sugar you might ask? Surprisingly, sugar is not always vegan because many refineries filter cane sugar through bone char made from cow bones.

Organic sugar is often vegan, however, and there are marketed vegan brands like this Wholesome Sweetners GMO-free and organic cane sugar that you can use in salad dressing. Still, a liquid sweetener like agave nectar will blend more easily into a liquid-based salad dressing.

One thing to remember when sweetening salad dressings with agave nectar is that it's sweeter than honey, sugar, and even maple syrup. Since most salad dressings don't require that much sweetener to begin with, you should take special care with agave nectar; less is more. Consequently, if you're swapping honey with agave nectar in a recipe, start by halving the measurements. For example, a four ingredient honey mustard dressing that calls for a tablespoon of honey might only need half a tablespoon of agave nectar for the same sweet and tangy flavor profile. You can always add more to taste.

Asian salad dressings with a set ratio of soy, acid, oil, and sugar, need that sweetener to offset the strength of umami-rich soy, tamari, or miso, but will still need an adjustment for agave nectar. If you add too much agave nectar to an Asian dressing, you can add a bit more soy sauce to balance the sweetness, but it's better to start with less and add more if you need it.

Sometimes you can get away with omitting sweetener altogether. In vinaigrette salad dressings, for example, you can simply choose a sweeter vinegar like balsamic, apple cider, or sherry vinegar. If you're using citrus juice for your acid, you can swap lemon for a sweeter lime, orange, or meyer lemon. But if you are looking for that little bit of extra sweetness, it's easy to source agave nectar online; Amazon sells a few brands, including Wholesome Sweetners Organic Blue Agave Nectar, and a lighter organic version by Whole Foods.