This 4-Ingredient Salad Dressing From Ina Garten Is Simple Yet Delicious

Sometimes, it's fun to turn the simple act of cooking a meal into an elaborate ritual. However, most days, we're just looking for something that can be made without a thousand ingredients and a substantial time commitment. If it tastes a little fancy, well, even better. Enter Ina Garten's lemon vinaigrette (and any of our 58 delicious salad recipes.) Made with just four ingredients, this salad dressing is a masterclass in the art of balance.

Still, it's not that Garten has come up with anything particularly revolutionary. Surely, you've had the classic combination of lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper atop your leafy greens a time or two before. What makes Garten's iteration special is that she seems to have found the perfect proportion of each ingredient.

Garten combines ½ cup of olive oil with ¼ a cup of lemon juice for a flavor profile that is bright and citrusy but grounded with bitter notes. A teaspoon of salt is added to make everything come alive along with just ½ teaspoon of black pepper to anchor it. Pro tip: Ina mixes hers directly in a measuring cup to streamline the process. It also makes for easier cleanup.

While Ina Garten offers up her lemon vinaigrette recipe as the ultimate dressing for fresh salads, it has the potential to be so much more! As a type of all-purpose vinaigrette recipe, you can easily toss this on a handful of arugula, add shaved Parmesan, and call it a day. However, it also makes a lovely chicken or fish marinade. You could pour it on your pasta salad, use it as a delightful dip for bread, or drizzle it over grilled veggies for bright shish kabobs.

When you're in the mood for a deeper, tangier flavor, you might consider adding some mustard to the mix. (Whatever you've got in your fridge could work just fine, but here's 17 types of mustard and how to use them if you're looking for a little inspiration.) Alternatively, if you have some fresh herbs lying around, chop them up and throw them into the mix, too!