The Tangy Addition Your Waldorf Salad Dressing Needs

Named for the location of its creation, the Waldorf salad hails from the Waldorf-Astoria hotel and has become a time-honored side dish, typically gracing Thanksgiving tables, summer picnics, and brunch buffets. Interestingly, the inventor of the Waldorf salad wasn't even a chef but rather a maître d', Oscar Tschirky, whose 1893 recipe included only celery and apples with an exceptionally simple dressing of mayonnaise, salt, and pepper. Over the years, the Waldorf salad has evolved to include grapes, walnuts, and even more unique additions depending on the recipe. One way to upgrade your Waldorf salad dressing beyond mundane mayonnaise is to combine it with a generous helping of Greek yogurt. This will give your salad the right amount of tang and complexity of flavor.

The differences between Greek yogurt and regular yogurt are mainly that Greek yogurt is thicker in texture and more sour tasting. This makes it ideal for mixing up with mayonnaise to make a dressing that's thick enough to coat all the ingredients in your salad and give everything a boost of tart flavor. Start with a yogurt like FAGE Total Greek Yogurt (available on Amazon) that's plain flavored so the rest of your fruit, vegetable, and nut ingredients will shine through. This is especially good for a candied walnut Waldorf salad recipe for which you'll want a balance of both sweetness and sourness.

If you want to make a modern Waldorf salad, it's all about taking classic ingredients and adding more interesting flavors and textures throughout. To make a more protein-rich Waldorf salad, try adding pieces of turkey into the mix. For something a little sweeter and more fruit-forward, try using a vanilla or honey-flavored Greek yogurt either added to or in place of the mayonnaise for the dressing. Bringing a Waldorf salad to Thanksgiving dinner might just inspire the addition of dried cranberries into the mix as long as your salad dressing properly ties everything together.

Add a drizzle of honey and a sprinkle of thyme to your Greek yogurt and mayonnaise dressing for a perfectly sweet and savory combination. If you like more sour tastes, a squirt or more of lemon or lime juice will also make an excellent addition. However you choose to amp up your Waldorf salad, Greek yogurt in your dressing is a great place to start.