Osem Vinaigrette Dressings

אסם סדרת רטבי ויניגרט לסלטים

Osem has come out with three new Vinaigrette Dressings. They even put them in festive flower designed bottles for Shavuot. The three dressings in this line are; Citrus Vinaigrette, Silan (date honey) & Coarse Ground Black Pepper Vinaigrette plus a Vinaigrette for Lettuce Salad.

According to the press release Osem did their “homework” and tried to find out what salads and salad dressings Israelis were searching for the most online. They then tried to create dressings that would suit the salads the public seemed to be searching for the most. They even went so far as to add, on the back of each bottle, the salad “recipe” that each dressing was intended for. So the Citrus Vinaigrette has a Chinese Carrot & Pecan salad recipe, the Silan & Coarse Ground Black Pepper Vinaigrette has a Dill Cabbage & Cranberry salad recipe on it and finally the Vinaigrette for Lettuce has a recipe for a Lettuce & Goats Cheese salad.

Strauss's Lettuce Based "Salads in a Bowl"

Strauss has two new lettuce based "salads in a bowl" on the market. The One they are calling a Caesar Salad is made up of romaine lettuce, iceberg lettuce, flavored croutons and a "classic" Caesar salad dressing. The second salad Strauss named a Garden Vegetable Salad. That has romaine lettuce, iceberg lettuce, shredded carrots, shredded red cabbage, sliced radishes, whole cherry tomatoes and an herb flavored dressing. These "individual portion salads" also come with a disposable fork, knife and napkin that are wrapped in a little plastic bag.
 

שטראוס לקטי סלט טריים באריזות אישיות

I was out and about the other day running from appointment to appointment when one meeting lasted much longer than anticipated. I realized I wouldn't have time to stop off at home to eat lunch. I was in the mood for a salad but didn’t want to pay "café prices" for a quick bite. Then I remembered reading a press release about Strauss's new "Salads in a Bowl". I wasn’t going to review this product because aside from the fact that the concept isn't new and Strauss has ready-made salads in a bag on the market for a really long time, if and when I buy pre-washed lettuce salads it's cheaper to buy the bag and not the ones that come in a bowl with dressing and "extras". So when I read the press-release I though anyone who's interested in pre-made salads must've tasted Strauss "bagged" versions by now. But at that moment standing in the supermarket trying to decide what to grab and eat and not be late to my next meeting the Strauss "Salad in a Bowl" seemed like the perfect solution.

I thought the Caesar salad looked really boring and decided to get the garden salad instead.

As with almost any Strauss lettuce based salads I have ever tasted, the vegetables in this Garden Salad were fresh and crispy.

Most of the lettuce was cut fairly roughly, leaving a lot of big pieces. At times I found it a bit challenging to get them onto the somewhat flimsy fork you get in the bowl, but in the end I somehow did manage to eat them too.

I actually really liked the big chunky sliced radishes. I always forget to add radishes to my salads so I was glad to have them in the mix.

To me the dressing seemed to taste like a honey mustard vinaigrette with added herbs. As I mentioned in my review of Osem's Silan (DateSyrup) Vinaigrette, I'm not a huge fan of honey mustard vinaigrettes. That having been said, I don’t think there was anything wrong with the dressing, but if I had an option I would've preferred something else.

Seeing as it wasn’t my dressing of choice I didn’t actually pour all the dressing into the bowl. Still it seemed to be a fairly generous amount of dressing for the 265 gram salad I had.

I was happy that I was able to reclose the bowl and the top stayed on securely. It made it very easy to take the left over salad home to be enjoyed later that day.

 
Bottom Line: I was glad to have the option to buy a fresh salad that was convenient to eat "on the go" at a fraction of the price it would cost to get the same thing at a café. According to the press release Strauss plans to add more salads to this Salad in a Bowl "line". I wouldn’t mind if they added a packet of seeds or nuts to the bowl, like they have in some of their salad bags. It would also be nice if eventually they would have a dressing option that's actually my dressing of choice.

265 grams salad in a bowl – 10.99 – 13.50

Kosher Rabbinate Eshkol Region

Disclaimer: All items were purchased by me. No one is paying me for this review. All opinions are my own.

This weeks Haveil Havalim Blog Carnival

Is now up on Esser Agaroth's Blog

  

Osem's Thousand Island Chili Dressing and Silan (Date Syrup) Vinaigrette

Osem has two new (limited edition) dressings on the market. One is a Thousand Island Chili Dressing and the second is a Silan (Date Syrup) Vinaigrette.

 I was only going to try the Silan Vinaigrette because it seemed more unique and different to me than a Thousand Island dressing with added chili. But when I saw that Mega Bul was having a special on all the Osem dressings; one was 11.90 NIS but you can get two for 15.00 NIS, so I thought it was worth trying both new dressings.

Thousand Island Chili Dressing

I cut up some vegetables to have with dinner and I drizzled some of the Thousand Island Chili Dressing on top. I think I put more dressing than I would have for the first time I was tasting it but, because I wanted to get a decent photo for this post I ended up pouring more than I think I should have . After I realized how much dressing I added I was worried that if it was too spicy I would not enjoy the salad. I do like spicy foods, to a degree, so in the end I wasn't too worried about giving it a try.
 

אסם וינגרט סילאן לסלט

Yes, the dressing has a kick to it. It was actually exactly what I expected it to be; Osem's Thousand Island dressing with added chili. If you don't like chili or spicy foods I don't think this dressing is for you. It's not the spiciest dressing I have ever tasted but it's absolutely hot and spicy.

I don’t normally buy ready-made dressings, I prefer to make my own. If I ever do use store bought dressing I always go for the low fat version. So to start with I didn’t really care for the full fat Osem Thousand Island dressing. Had they added the chili to their 5% fat dressing I may have enjoyed it more.

Bottom Line: 

I thought the chili in this Osem Thousand Island dressing added a nice extra touch and gave the salad a strong pop of hot and spicy flavor. Even if I didn’t love it, I would say this dressing lived up to exactly what I thought it would be; chili/spicy Osem Thousand Island dressing.

 

Silan (Date Syrup) Vinaigrette

אסם וינגרט סילאן

To me this dressing tasted very much like a honey mustard vinaigrette. I checked the label and low and behold it has mustard in it as well. On second thought, I'm not sure what I really expected it to be. It makes perfect sense that a Silan Vinaigrette would be a "takeoff" on a honey mustard vinaigrette.

I can't say I would have known on my own that they used silan as the sweetener and not honey but maybe people who regularly use silan or those that normally put honey mustard dressings on their salad will be able to tell the difference.

I thought this Silan Vinaigrette was a little peppery; it seemed like a lot of black pepper to me. I think maybe they used a coarse ground black pepper and as I bit into pepper "bits" it gave a slightly stronger black pepper taste than I anticipated.      

Bottom Line: I don’t normally go for honey mustard dressings but I enjoyed this dressing on my salad. I thought it was a decent dressing. If you like store bought honey mustard vinaigrette dressings I think you will also enjoy this Osem Silan (Date Syrup) Vinaigrette.

*****

All of Osem's dressings (and many of their sauces) are now in a bottle with a different cap. I found the new plastic bottle (as opposed to the old glass one) to be both convenient and easy to use.

I liked that the new cap stays on the bottle and you just flip it up to open it.

It has a "tear" shaped opening that I thought was a perfect sized pouring "spout". It makes it somewhat easier to control how much or how little dressing you want to drizzle on your salad.

Sadly glass is not easily recycled here in Israel, so I was very happy that these new dressings are in a plastic bottle and they will be very simple for me to recycle. That’s just one more plus to the new bottles.

290 mL bottle- 11.90 NIS I got them on sale, two for 15.00 NIS    

Kosher Parve Mehadrin Badatz
הרב יעקב משה חרל"פ

Disclaimer: All items were purchased by me. No one is paying me for this review. All opinions are my own.