The Zesty Upgrade Your Favorite Salad Dressing Needs

Store-bought salad dressing is a convenience, for sure, but is it really living up to its full potential? If your salad is on the ho-hum side of the scale, that means your dressing should be spectacular, marvelous, divine — and it can be, with just a little zhuzh from a condiment you likely already have in your fridge.

Rather than adding actual pickles — which are having their moment in the sun — to the dressing (though they do add an extra punch of taste to the salad itself), you're going to add the juice the pickles are floating in. If you have a jar of these brined treats hanging out in your kitchen (after all, open jars last a few months in the fridge), you can apply this clever use for pickle juice.

Not only is the acidity — as well as the sweetness, if you're using bread and butter pickle juice, or the spiciness if you're using hot pickles — going to perk up whatever dressing you're using, the brine adds a bit of salty, savory flavor. You don't have to use the mass-produced jarred pickles from the grocery store, either; if you bought some locally made from a farmer's market or were gifted a pickle of the month subscription, those artisanal juices will really take your dressing up a notch.

There are many different individual ingredients that you can add to store-bought dressing to give a lift of flavor where you most need it. A few that you might already have on hand includes honey, which can give savory dressing a most delectable hint of sweetness, or even pepper that has been freshly ground. Fresh pepper is so aromatic, there's a reason it is considered one of the most significant spices to ever exist.

You could also add a teaspoon or two of freshly squeezed lemon juice (or lime juice, depending on the flavor profile of your dressing — sesame-forward Asian dressings certainly take it well). Lemon juice is bright and acidic and will help cut through any heavy richness on the salad, while balancing out sweetness in the dressing. Finally, tossing in any garden-picked herbs you have on hand, be it basil, oregano, parsley, or even dill adds freshness and lightness to both dressing and salad.