Dressing with a Twist

Dressings for salad have a long and flavorful history, with many original formulations still served as classics today. The basic Italian vinaigrettes, as well as the neon-orange French dressings of yesteryear, are still available on grocers' shelves; however, it is flavor fusions such as Vidalia onion with peppercorn and raspberry hibiscus Beaujolais that are enticing consumers to pour -- or in the case of some formulations, spoon -- it on.

The ambient-temperature dressing aisle, as well as a designated part of the produce case, is filled with dynamic offerings ranging from gourmet to traditional, and better-for-you to extreme-tasting. Ambient-temperature dressings are made using a hot-fill process. This, in combination with the low pH of vinegar, a key ingredient in most dressings, renders them shelf-stable until opened. Once the dressing is exposed to the environment, refrigeration is necessary. Refrigerated dressings, on the other hand, are considered fresh. They do not undergo a heat treatment prior to filling (cold-process), and therefore, always require refrigeration.

Dressings are used for the obvious, to top salads, but the category is also benefiting from reinvention as a marinade or dip. In fact, some dressings are cross-merchandised with other foods, such as snack chips or seafood. A growing number of consumers even use dressing as a sandwich spread, as a little can really liven up a ham-and-cheese on wheat.

Retail sales of dressing have been on an upward slope for quite a few years. Most recently, the $1.7 billion dressing category grew 4.6% from 2001 to 2003, and is expected to grow 3% in the next five years, according to data from Information Resources Inc., Chicago, and a recent category report from Mintel, Chicago.

It is the refrigerated dressings that are driving sales. In fact, from 2001 to 2003, refrigerated dressing sales increased 16.3%, growing from a $160 million business in 2001 to a $186 million category. However, refrigerated dressings only comprise 10.9% of all dressing retail sales. The ambient aisle is where dressings move. Shelf-stable dressings control 82.4% of the dressing category. The remaining 6.7% of retail sales comes from dry-mix sales, a very small and also declining category. In fact, from 2001 to 2003 dry-mix sales decreased 4.3%.

According to a May 2004 survey by The Association for Dressings and Sauces, Atlanta, on average, consumers keep three bottles of dressing on hand. With a plethora of flavors and formulations to choose from, it can be challenging to get consumers to buy your dressing. Product developers looking for that special twist to have their creations stand out from the competition: Read on.

Today's consumers are turning to dressings for flavor -- a lot of flavor, or "extreme flavor," as those in the industry commonly refer to it. Textures and flavors are reaching new heights, particularly as ethnic ingredients are used in combination with traditional flavors. However, before you start combining ingredients, there are a few basic things you should know.

First of all, the term "salad dressing" has both a legal and familiar definition, with the latter being the focus of this article. For regulatory compliance, the familiar term "salad dressing" should be simply "dressing," and products should be labeled as such, because the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) has a standard of identity for "salad dressing." This product resembles mayonnaise, which also has a standard of identity. Both of these highly viscous products seldom top a salad on their own; however, they both can serve as a base for dressings. Of all the many dressings in the grocery store, only French has a standard of identity specifying necessary and optional ingredients and their levels.

Dressings can be either creamy or vinaigrette-style. Excluding nonfat formulations, creamy dressings consist of oil-in-water emulsions that appear as homogeneous blends. Water provides the continuous phase and oil makes up the discontinuous phase. The emulsion gives the dressing body, resulting in a highly viscous product. Vinaigrettes, on the other hand, show a distinctly visible separation between the oil and vinegar phases until they are shaken prior to serving. Vinaigrettes typically contain three parts oil to one part vinegar.

With creamy dressings, the quality of the dressing depends on this emulsion's stability. A good rule of thumb is the smaller the oil droplet, the more stable the emulsion.

"In order to guarantee long-term physical stability of creamy dressings, these products must be stabilized with thickening and emulsifying additives," says Torsten Boese, team manager of the nondairy division, G.C. Hahn & Co., Lübeck, Germany. "These ingredients prevent separation of water and oil during storage, they provide constant viscosity during storage, they provide a stable viscosity despite any temperature fluctuations, they prevent air entrapment during manufacture and they prevent sedimentation of ingredients."

Emulsifiers accomplish this by orienting themselves between the oil and water phases, creating a barrier around each oil droplet. Egg yolk is an excellent natural emulsifier, which is one of the reasons why the standard of identity for salad dressing and mayonnaise includes egg yolks.

The high emulsification properties of egg yolk come largely from the low-density lipoprotein fraction, which is the major component of yolk plasma. These surface-active agents form a film around oil globules and prevent coalescence and fat separation. "Besides physical stability, stabilizer systems provide creaminess, a light mouthfeel and a viscous texture," Boese adds.

In dressings made with dairy ingredients, such as those based on buttermilk or yogurt, stabilizers protect the milk proteins from precipitating. The stabilizer system in creamy dressings that contain herbs or other particulates (i.e., creamy Italian dressing) keeps them in suspension.

The reasons for using a stabilizer system change somewhat when oil is reduced or not even added. In such cases, the stabilizer system must function as both a fat mimetic and viscosifier. It must provide lubricity and at the same time stay neutral in both taste and appearance.

"In low-fat dressings containing less than 3% fat, TIC Pretested Ticaloid® 102-S-96 may help mimic the mouthfeel characteristics of a full-fat system while dramatically reducing calories," says Florian Ward, vice president of research and development, TIC Gums, Belcamp, MD. "Adding microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) to the gum blend helps increase adhesion of the dressing onto the salad. And the opacity provided by MCC really helps mimic the oil-in-water emulsion normally present in creamy dressings."

This powder is a gum-and-starch system that was designed specifically for reduced-fat and nonfat mayonnaise, salad dressing, dressing and sauce manufacture. TIC Gum's Chef Walter Zuromski has developed a low-fat Asian ginger dressing using the product in combination with a variety of authentic Asian ingredients, including 4.7% sesame oil; 12.4% of each rice vinegar, soy sauce and hoisin sauce; 24.9% plum sauce; and a variety of spices. The powder is hydrated in the vinegar and 17.1% water. After hydration, the remaining ingredients are added and blended at high shear to purée the particulates and emulsify the oil.

Another system from TIC Gums, Saladizer 702, is a proprietary blend of guar gum, xanthan gum and propylene glycol alginate, which can stabilize both reduced-fat and full-fat dressings. In fact, "Saladizer 702 was developed as a low-cost, functional stabilizer for commercial dressing production," says Ward. "It is a high-viscosity product that results in economic usage levels."

"Each and every ingredient added to dressing influences its stability," says Boese. "Therefore, oftentimes a tailor-made stabilizer system has to be developed to maintain physical stability and related properties." In addition, the process (hot-fill versus cold-process, as well as plant-to-plant variations) affects the stabilizer's effectiveness and usage level.

Ingredients showing up in today's spectrum of dressings include various botanicals, cheese, chile pepper, cilantro, lemon grass, mustard, peppercorn, sesame, soy, vanilla and wasabi, as well as a variety of wines and spirits. There are many unusual pairings of flavors, particularly ingredients that heat and cool the palate, as well as provide both sweet and sour. There's also a trend toward increased authenticity in ethnic flavors.

These trends were on display at the May 2004 Fancy Food Show in Chicago, where companies such as Delicaé Gourmet, Tarpon Springs, FL, showcased gourmet salad dressings in flavors such as orange lavender horseradish with French herbs and key lime mango rum. And, Los Angeles- based Melissa's debuted a line of refrigerated miso dressings, which come in two flavors: wasabi ginger and shiitake sesame. Miso is a rich, salty, soy-based condiment that is basically fermented tofu. It is one of many flavors that characterize the essence of Japanese cooking. Earlier in the year, wanting to get a jump start in the Asian-style dressing business, Naturally Fresh Inc., Atlanta, introduced Ginger Dressing.

One of the flavoring ingredients that can give dressing an Asian flair is soy sauce. It also complements non-Asian flavors by adding a salty, savory flavor. It helps temper vinegar's harshness; helps blend spice flavors; contributes preservation to cold-process dressings; and adds color.

Regular soy sauce typically has a deep reddish-brown color and a rich flavor. It can be used in dressings when soy sauce, or some other Asian flavors, are characterizing to the dressing. When the soy sauce is added for that little extra kick, some suppliers offer a light-colored variety. It tends to be slightly saltier than regular soy sauce, but is much clearer. This enables other ingredients to retain their natural colors.

"One of the trends we are seeing, especially in Asian-style dressings, is the use of rice-wine vinegar, which serves as a building block for dressings rather than the standard white distilled vinegar," says Jim Polansky, national sales manager, Todhunter Foods & Monarch Wine Co., West Palm Beach, FL. "The authenticity of the rice-wine vinegar and its flavor attributes tend to help meld flavor synergies much better."

The flavor of rice-wine vinegar blends well with sesame oil. Japanese rice-wine vinegar is mellower and smoother than the Chinese variety, which is more assertive and sharp. Dressings can really liven up when specialty vinegars are used, as they provide the dressing so much more than an acidic kick.

The word vinegar comes from the French vin aigre, which translates as "sour wine." Wines fermented to vinegars have long been used to lower dressing pH, at the same time providing a tart, pungent flavor that brings balance to a dressing. Bacterial fermentation turns the alcohol in wine into acetic acid. Many vinegars are made from naturally fermented wines or those that have turned sour. The highest-quality vinegars are made in wooden casks formerly used to make wines. Many of these vinegars are aged several years in cool, dark cellars and bottled only after the vinegar has mellowed.

White-wine vinegar begins with any one of many varietals of white wine including chardonnay and Riesling. These vinegars tend to be sweeter, lighter and smoother than red-wine vinegars, which can be made from any type of red wine, including Burgundy, merlot and zinfandel. Red-wine vinegar has a full-body with a touch of sweetness. It is the sharpest and most assertive of all vinegars.

Balsamic vinegar is increasingly popular in the States. Made in the Modena region of Italy, it starts from a sweet wine. Aging in barrels yields intense aromatics, a reddish-brown color and a flavor that is quite acidic, yet finishes sweet. Those sweet-and-sour types of flavors fit in so well with today's obsession with yin and yang.

Vinegars can also be made from ingredients such as cider and malt. Cider vinegar is made from apples, which lends the vinegar a slightly fruity flavor. This vinegar has a strong, acidic bite. Malt vinegar is made from malted barley. It possesses a golden color with a clean, slightly fruity aroma.

Designers sometimes use real wine, or what is actually a product somewhere between drinkable wine and vinegar, in specialty dressing formulations in order to flag a claim, such as "made with real sweet Marsala." These wine ingredients are just that ... ingredients. They resemble the real thing and can be labeled as such. Manufacturers render these ingredients nondrinkable through denaturation, which in this case, is through the addition of ingredients such as garlic, onion or salt. Denatured liquors are exempt from state and federal taxes. "Dressings made with denatured wines have a true wine flavor and can be described as being made with real wine," says Polansky. Formulating with denatured wines is easy. Food scientists that are developing dressings with wines denatured by salt simply adjust the salt content of the formulation to account for the salt in the wine.

Wines can also be reduced. "Our reductions are 10-fold concentrations of the original wine," says Polansky. "All the alcohol and most of the water has been reduced off, and the reduced wine is extremely concentrated and very cost effective. We have also developed a line of denatured flavored rum ingredients, as flavored rum is becoming very popular in tropical and island-style dressings."

Unique flavors in dressings can also come from the oil component. With food oils, you get what you pay for. Less-expensive oils, such as corn, soybean and sometimes canola, are not typically used for the flavors they impart. In fact, when product developers use these, they look for blandness as a benefit. Use is strictly for emulsion development, as well as coating and pouring properties.

About a decade ago, when consumers started becoming fat savvy, product developers started formulating dressings with olive oil. The olive oil not only provides dressing with a healthful fatty-acid profile, it also imparts a distinctive flavor, one that many consumers can readily identify.

Processors grade olive oils informally according to the method of extraction and the content of free oleic acid, which indicates the extent to which fat molecules have been degraded into their fatty-acid components. Virgin olive oil comes from the first pressing of the olive and is unrefined. Extra-virgin olive oil may contain up to 1% free oleic acid. Subsequent pressings extract substances that impart a harsh flavor to the oil, and refining is usually necessary to remove them. Olive oil labeled "pure" is likely a mixture of first and second pressings. Regulations permit up to 4% free oleic acid in pure olive oil.

Today, designers still do not consider olive oil a standard ingredient in most dressing applications, but it has become more common, particularly in vinaigrettes. Nut oils have also started showing up in gourmet and fanciful dressings. Blending olive and/or nut oils with neutral oils, such as soybean or canola, helps balance the flavor so that the olive or nut oil isn't too pronounced.

An increasingly popular nut oil comes from hazelnuts. With a light golden color that is slightly darker than soybean oil, hazelnut oil imparts a toasty, smooth, delicate and buttery flavor to dressings. It complements fruit vinegars as well as other mellow-flavored vinegars.

Another popular nut oil is walnut. Similar in color to hazelnut oil, walnut oil has a fuller body and a distinctly nutty flavor. As a result, designers seldom use walnut oil by itself, but rather mix it with a lighter, more neutral-tasting oil.

Designers include peanut and sesame oils in dressings that have an Asian flair. Peanut oil has a delicate flavor -- the more refined, the milder the peanut profile. Chinese peanut oils tend to have the most flavor.

Various types of sesame oil exist. In general, the thicker and browner the oil, the more aromatic the profile. Processors press a light variety with Middle Eastern origins from raw white sesame seeds, and the resultant oil has a very mild, nutty taste. The Oriental variety, made from toasted sesame seeds, has a dark-brown color and a strong toasted-sesame flavor.

Hemp-seed oil provides dressing formulations with a pleasant nutty flavor. Due to its high chlorophyll content, hemp-seed oil has an attractive emerald green color, which makes for some unique products. The chlorophyll is also a powerful antioxidant, which can contribute to a healthful halo, as can hemp oil's essential fatty-acid (EFA) profile.

Medical evidence supporting the critical role of EFAs for enhancing and maintaining human health continues to grow. EFAs are the "good fats" that bodies need but can't produce; therefore, EFAs must be obtained through the diet.

"Hemp-seed oil is the richest source of the omega-6 and omega-3 EFAs," says Mike Fata, North American sales manager for Manitoba Harvest, Winnipeg, Manitoba. For optimum health, EFAs need to be consumed in a certain ratio, according to numerous nutrition experts. Hemp-seed oil is said to be that perfect ratio: 3.75 omega-6 to 1.0 omega-3 EFA.

If you are on a formulation budget, which often happens in large product lines that have every SKU line-priced, offering a variety made with a unique or specialty oil might not be an affordable option. "We have an artificial olive oil flavor that can be used to replace olive oil. Usage is 2% in soybean or canola oil," says Dan Loeffler, manager of specialty products, Wixon Inc., St. Francis, WI. "Sometimes the price issue is not with the oil; rather it is with other ingredients, such as vinegar. Our artificial balsamic vinegar flavor can replace expensive balsamic vinegar by combining 7.5% flavor with 47.0% 120-grain white vinegar and 45.5% water."

If a healthful fat profile is your goal when selecting an oil ingredient, some new entries in the food ingredient marketplace make it possible to truly offer consumers a better-for-you fat. For example, Enova(TM) brand oil is the first cooking oil clinically shown to help consumers maintain a healthy weight when used as part of a sensible diet. "When you metabolize the fat in Enova oil, much of the fat is burned as energy in the liver," says Branin Lane, research manager, ADM, Decatur, IL.

This product is manufactured through a process that starts with soy and canola oils. The component that makes it stand out from other oils -- diacylglycerols (DAGs) -- is initially present only in small quantities. Through a patented process, ADM Kao LLC, a joint venture between ADM and Kao Corporation, Tokyo, Japan, converts the predominant triacylglycerols (TAGs) in natural soy and canola oils into a mixture that is at least 80% DAGs.

"Traditional cooking oils consist mostly of TAGs, with a small amount of DAGs," Lane says. "Enova oil consists mostly of DAGs. It is this unique feature that appears to provide benefical effects on fat metabolism in the body." TAGs carry three fatty acids on a backbone molecule; DAGs carry only two fatty acids. They are either in the first and second positions on the backbone (1,2 DAGs) or in the first and third positions (1,3 DAGs). Enova oil consists of 80% DAGs; 70% of these DAGs are in the 1,3-form.

"The body breaks down Enova oil and traditional TAG oils in the same way and absorbs the resulting fatty acids into the intestine," says Lane. "Then the intestine rebuilds the fatty acids into fat molecules and combines them into packets that are sent to the bloodstream, to be stored in body tissues. But according to research, the body doesn't treat all fats quite the same. That is what makes Enova oil different. Due to the shape of the 1,3-DAG molecules, enzymes in the intestine cannot recombine the pieces of this fat into fat molecules, so less fat is passed into the bloodstream to be stored in the body. The phrase we use to describe this in consumer terms is that more Enova oil is burned as energy, not stored as fat. Our research indicates that consumers definitely see Enova oil in dressings. With many lower- and nonfat dressings, consumers feel like they are sacrificing on taste. By choosing a dressing with Enova oil, there are no taste sacrifices."

The oil is GRAS for use in dressings. And, in most cases, it directly replaces all of the oil in a dressing formulation, according to Lane. "However, the more ingredients, the more complicated the systems, and thus, every dressing formulation must be dealt with individually," says Lane.

This new oil is available to U.S. manufacturers solely as a co-branded ingredient. It is listed in ingredient statements as "diacylglycerol." The product has been sold in Japan since 1999 under the brand Healthy Econa(TM) Cooking Oil. It is also used in the formulation of a line of dressings sold under the Econa brand.

Migdal HaEmeq, Israel-based Enzymotec Ltd. markets MultOil, another healthful oil that has a high level of DAG (about 15%). This oil also contains 25% phytosterols, which possess heart-healthy qualities. The product is recognized as GRAS, and products formulated with it qualify for the FDA-approved health claim linking phytosterol consumption with reducing the risk for coronary heart disease. Produced using a patented enzymatic process, MultOil is designed for use either as a substitute for cooking oil or as an ingredient in functional-food formulations, such as dressings.

With whatever oil you choose to formulate dressing, the amount of trans-fatty acids contributed by the oil on a per-serving-basis of dressing should be negligible. So, come Jan. 1, 2006, most dressing Nutrition Facts labels will declare zero grams trans fat per serving -- that is, unless some of the twists mentioned next have trans fats. Even if they do, the amount per serving will likely still round down to zero.

Once you have decided if you are going to use a hot-fill or cold-process, have the dressing be creamy or vinaigrette, and have made your vinegar and oil selection, it is time to move on to the fun stuff. Though technically the minor ingredients in dressing, as many are used in very low percentages, these ingredients often catch consumers' attention. Examples include cheeses, fruit purées, garlic, herbs, honey, onion, peppercorns, shallots, spices and even vegetable pieces.

Again, for a quality dressing, choose high-quality ingredients, even if they are minor. Quick-frozen particulate ingredients tend to have a better flavor and texture than dried ingredients. Fresh is always an option, but can cut down on shelf life.

Cheese is definitely very trendy in dressings. In fact, since January 2003, according to Productscan®, a product database maintained by Marketing Intelligence Service Ltd., Naples, NY, 15 new dressings contained Parmesan cheese, 11 contained blue, nine Romano, four feta, three Asiago and two Cheddar. "There is quite a bit of formulating activity with using cheese as a flavor-enhancing ingredient in dressings," says Dana Tanyeri, director, national product communications, Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, Madison. "Besides the more-common cheeses, we have also seen fontina, gorgonzola, Mexican cotija, mozzarella and white Cheddar in dressings. Additionally, just as in other product categories, blends of two or more cheeses are showing up in dressings. Approximately one-third of all new dressings introduced since January 2003 included blends of more than one cheese."

Designers typically formulate cheese ingredients for dressings to maintain their identity during dressing manufacture and shelf life. Oftentimes, they occur as lower-moisture, formed particulates.

Part of the reason there is so much interest in cheese is that it is naturally low in carbohydrates, and thus appeals to consumers following a low-carb lifestyle. "We have had a large demand for cheese ingredients that work in low-carbohydrate and low-trans-fatty-acid dressings," says Megan Boell, vice president, Commercial Creamery Company, Spokane, WA. "We have two cheese products that meet this demand very well -- shelf-stable Cheese Chunkettes and Cheese Crumbettes. They are either small chunks or crumbs of specially designed cheese that add wonderful visual and flavor to dressings."

These cheese ingredients come in many varieties, with some of the most popular being blue, Cheddar and Parmesan. "So you can create dressings with multiple sizes and types of cheese to add variation to your line of dressings," concludes Boell.

Blue cheese continues its popular status in dressings, as evidenced by its inclusion in both timeless and new products. For example, the first line of refrigerated low-carb dressings debuted in April from Litehouse Foods, Sandpoint, ID. Litehouse® One Carb Plus(TM) is a pourable dressing based on canola oil. The dressing contains only one carbohydrate per serving and comes in six flavors, one of which contains blue cheese.

Another trend in dressings is mustard, particularly layered with another flavor. For example, new Sweet Onion Mustard from French's Flavor Ingredients, Springfield, MO, can add a sweet-zesty flavor to a dressing base. This golden-hued, all-natural mustard also provides a visual richness to low-fat creamy dressings.

A yin and yang flavor from French's that has application in dressings is Frank's RedHot® Chile 'n Lime(TM) hot sauce. The company describes it as "savory heat with a tangy twist that can be used to create a passionate tango of Latin-inspired foods and condiments, including dressings."

Oftentimes when numerous flavorful ingredients are blended together, one or more undesirable flavors or off-notes may develop. This is where flavor, creativity and masking technologies come in. For example, Wixon Inc. has developed a line of flavor modifiers that eliminates flavor problems in a variety of foods including dressings. "Our Mag-nifique flavors are used as flavor modifiers and are particularly useful in systems made with nontraditional ingredients. They are noncharacterizing flavors that can enhance desirable flavor attributes in dressings or suppress undesirable ones," says Loeffler. "These natural, water-soluble, heat-stable flavors address common sensory problems at very low levels, without impacting critical label claims or ingredient statements. They focus on the problem instead of the whole system." For example, though not organic themselves, because usage levels are so low, Mag-nifique flavors, which are kosher parve, can be used in organic dressings and not affect organic status.

The flavors effectively manage the taste profiles of reduced-fat or reduced-carbohydrate salad dressings -- even in cases where fat and carbohydrates have been completely eliminated. For example, in calorie-reduced systems with some or all of the fat removed, undesirable sour notes can overwhelm perception. In such cases, a flavor modifier can work wonders.

"The control of pH in salad dressings is a common practice to extend shelf life. In full-fat systems, the finished salad dressing does not exhibit sour characteristics due to the functionality of fat," says Loeffler. "When low-fat counterparts are formulated, maintaining the same pH will often manifest very sour notes. Mag-nifique Sour Away can be used to reduce sourness in such systems without altering pH, enabling the desired pH without sour aftertastes."

Another way to mellow the acidic vinegar taste is to partially or fully replace the vinegar with the acidulant glucono delta-lactone (GDL). GDL is recognized as GRAS, as it is a natural food acid that lowers the pH of food systems and at the same time contributes to a tangy flavor without being as overwhelming as vinegar. A 2.5% GDL aqueous solution will yield a pH of about 2.3, or the same as 100-grain vinegar (10% acetic acid).

Removing fat can change the mouthfeel and smoothness of salad dressing. "The removal of fat results in salad dressings that are less rounded in flavor character and less creamy," Loeffler says. "Mag-nifique Mouthfeel can be used to provide a better rounded flavor and create a more creamy perception."

A fairly new formulation problem in salad dressings has surfaced as a result of removing carbohydrates, as some of these products have traditionally relied on high-fructose corn syrup for both flavor and mouthfeel. When replacing such sweeteners with high-intensity sweetener alternatives, the system changes. "Mag-nifique Sweet Away can be used to produce a more sugar-like perception in salad dressings made with sucralose. It is very effective at shortening the residency time of sucralose and producing a clean, sugarlike finish," says Loeffler.

Thanks to ingredient and processing technologies, dressings can be formulated to complement almost every dietary need, flavor, cuisine and use. Dressings have a promising future in today's marketplace. With more varieties making their way into consumers' homes, chances are the average number of bottles of dressing on hand will increase from three to four -- or five -- very soon.

Donna Berry, president of Chicago-based Dairy & Food Communications, Inc., a network of professionals in business-to-business technical and trade communications, has been writing about product development and marketing for nine years. Prior to that, she worked for Kraft Foods in the natural-cheese division. She has a B.S. in Food Science from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. She can be reached at [email protected].

Back to top