Balsamic Fig Dressing

Balsamic Fig Dressing by Stonewall Kitchen

Balsamic Fig Dressing by Stonewall Kitchen is a dark, creamy dressing made from fig purée and balsamic vinegar, awarded Best Salad Dressing in the USA in 2008. It clings to salad leaves and takes the edge off bitter varieties like radicchio.

Balsamic Fig Dressing is the fruity salad dressing from Stonewall Kitchen in York, Maine, designed for hearty leaf salads, goat cheese, and grilled dishes. Fig purée and balsamic vinegar provide sweetness and acidity, a splash of orange adds freshness, and vanilla extract rounds off the dark fruit.

Dark fig, velvety acidity

Fig purée and concentrate provide the dark, almost jam-like sweetness, while the balsamic vinegar provides the contrasting acidity to keep it lively. In the bottle, the dressing looks almost black; on the leaf, it displays a warm brown tone.

Orange adds a bright peak, black pepper a quiet heat, and the vanilla extract settles over it like a soft blanket. The rapeseed oil stays in the background, because here, sweetness sets the tone rather than fat.

Well-shaken, it pours thickly from the spoon and stays on the leaf instead of collecting at the bottom of the bowl. The xanthan gum in the bottle holds the oil and water together, where a homemade vinaigrette would have long since separated.

From leaf salad to oven-roasted vegetables

One to two tablespoons are enough for a large bowl of leaf salad; no more is needed because this Stonewall Kitchen dressing is both bold and sweet.

Arugula with tomato, goat cheese with walnuts, pear with aged mountain cheese, and lamb's lettuce with bacon are the dishes where it feels right at home. Drizzled over roasted root vegetables, the sweetness caramelizes slightly in the oven, and a spoonful in a marinade works well for grilled chicken or pork. Stirred into a potato salad, it removes the heaviness, and poured over warm lentils, it replaces the need for any other seasoning.

For something fresh and lemony, try the Lemon Dijon Vinaigrette, and you can find our full selection under dressings and vinaigrettes.

Awarded as best salad dressing

In the year of its release, it received the sofi Award for Best Salad Dressing, the Specialty Food Association's prize for outstanding gourmet food.

The idea comes from a recipe for stuffed figs with cheese that was in Stonewall Kitchen's own cookbook. The interplay of sweet fig and salty cheese was turned into the bottle, which brings that same principle to the salad plate.

The fruit provides more than just sweetness. Its fine seeds give the dressing a subtle graininess, and its sugar provides a glaze when heated that a simple vinegar-oil mixture can never achieve. Balsamic vinegar, in turn, arrives in the bottle already sweet because reduced grape must is its base, meeting the dark fruit halfway.

Dark fruit on fresh greens

On a plate of young leaves, a few wedges of fresh fig, and goat cheese, the dark tones meet bright green, and the summer evening is complete.

Shake the bottle vigorously before each use so that the oil and fruit reunite, and return it to a cool place afterwards. A final drop always finds a slice of white bread or warm oven vegetables to soak it up. In the end, all that remains of Stonewall Kitchen is an empty jar in the sink.