Learning to make my own dressing, Todds Chipotle Dressing Recipe

When trying to get as many greens as possible, I'm also always trying to find or make new salad dressings.  Recently I've been quite interested in playing around with chipotle related sauces and dressings.  I love the chipotle flavor and when done just right, it gives a little kick but with surprisingly wonderful flavor.  A little note on chipotle peppers, do you know what a chipotle pepper is?  I didn't until recently when I looked it up and found out it is just a jalepeno pepper that has been smoke dried.

Usually when making a creamy dressing, I've used Mori-Nu silken tofu.  The silken tofu works in place of sour cream and I've used this method to make Ranch dressing in the past with reasonably good results.  The one problem with using tofu is it just seems to have a "taste" that I don't care for in a dressing.  The other day, I got the idea of trying soy yogurt instead.  It's a little easier to work with and maybe it wouldn't have the "taste" that bothered me even though it is still soy based.

My first recipe with plain soy yogurt is my stab at a Chipotle Dressing.  Yes, all the amounts are completely my own, completely from scratch and I was truly winging it.  I still think it could use a little work and each person may want to tweak the seasonings to their own liking.  TIP:  Save bottles from bought salad dressings to be used for your own creations. 


Todd's Chiptole Salad Dressing

Ingredients:
1 cup plain soy yogurt (I use WholeSoy & Company brand)
1/3 cup of soy milk (rice milk, almond milk or similar could be used)
1/2 tsp. chiptole powder (if you have dried chipotle peppers, try one of those first and then increase to your liking)
1/2 tsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. agave (or other sweetener)
1/2 tsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp.onion powder
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. Braggs Aminos
1 1/2 tsp. rice vinegar
1/4 tsp. salt

Mix all ingredients in a blender and enjoy!

Notes: I added the agave early and decided I didn't like the addition of a sweetener.  To ovset the sweetener, I had to add the rice vinegar.  You may be able to eliminate both those ingredients in this recipe to get a better result (the rice was kind of an "undo" of the agave).

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