Ina Garten’s Homemade Blue Cheese Dressing Recipe

If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, SheKnows may receive an affiliate commission.

There are many things we love about summer cooking, from the smell of burgers and grilled chicken sizzling on the grill to the pleasure of making homemade ice cream for dessert. But everyone knows that the best thing about summer cooking is that the products are top quality. From ripe, juicy tomatoes to fresh, crisp lettuce to crunchy cucumbers, it’s a joy to add more vegetables to our diet this time of year. So how can you elevate the coolness of summer so that it actually deserves dinner status? Leave it to Ina Garten, author of Modern comfort food, to get the answer. To give her summer vegetables the star treatment, she whips up something creamy, cheesy, and rich: a homemade blue cheese vinaigrette that turns any summer vegetable into a meal worth celebrating .

Creating summer salads can seem a little intimidating, especially if you’re used to seeing the colorful bowls filled with dozens of different ingredients that appear so often on TikTok. Sure, they look great, but we want to spend most of our time enjoying the sun, not holed up in the kitchen chopping piles of veggies and roasting nuts.

That’s why Ina Garten’s Homemade Blue Cheese Vinaigrette is a summer staple. You can make a batch and then use it to dress any type of raw vegetable you like. Garten pairs her vinaigrette with a simple salad of fresh green lettuce and heirloom tomatoes. When the ingredients this time of year are so delicious, things don’t need to be complicated. You can add whatever you want to the salad – cucumbers, fresh corn, sliced ​​peppers, chopped parsley, roasted beets – and it will all be enhanced by Garten’s creamy vinaigrette.

Luckily, the homemade blue cheese dressing recipe is simple to make, with a food processor doing most of the work (although you can also just use a whisk or spoon if you don’t feel like lugging yours around the counter). Garten adds Roquefort cheese, mayonnaise, heavy cream, vinegar, salt and pepper, then runs the food processor until the ingredients are combined but the cheese is still in large chunks. Still craving more cheese flavor? Garten tops her salad with Roquefort crumbles to ensure its unique flavor shines through.

There’s just something about pairing the fresh, creamy, tangy blue cheese dressing with the fresh vegetables that is irresistible. Don’t want salad? You can also pair the blue cheese dressing with raw vegetables, and it’s also delicious as a burger topping. Whip up a batch of Ina Garten’s Homemade Blue Cheese Dressing and you’ll be snacking on veggies all summer long.

Looking for more summer recipes? Giada De Laurentiis has plenty:

Watch: How to Make Watermelon and Mango Salsa