On Saturday morrning, Madhouse Daddy Mike went to do the weekly shop after work. As usual, as I stayed home with the kids, he phoned me from the supermarket to ask what we needed. I told him the same as usual and gave him a short list of three or four things, including salad dressing, to pick up. On Sunday, Madhouse Daddy Mike did a barbecue for lunch. (I know, he's racking up the Brownie points at the moment !) While he did the caveman thing and carried around slabs of meat, I started making a variety of salads to go with it - coleslaw, tuna and potato salad, couscous salad, mixed green salad. I went to the fridge for the salad dressing and ... the cupboard was bare ! He'd forgotten it !
I had a look through the contents of the fridge but we were out of all the sachets of Just Add... salad dressings we'd been trying (that I told you about here), we were out of salad cream and I really didn't fancy smothering it in mayonnaise because that rather defeats the whole idea of eating salad! I toyed with the idea of knocking up vinaigrette myself but the last recipe I tried was horrible and nobody would eat it. (If you have a tried-and-tested salad dressing recipe to share, leave it in the comments box and I'll give it a go !)
Just as I was about to give up, I came across a sachet of Just Add... Mint Drizzle. Now, mint isn't something I'd usually think of for a salad dressing but I was also in the middle of preparing lemon, mint & parsley couscous so I thought it might work. The packaging says that it is designed for drizzling over potatoes so would it work with salad ?
Well, yes it did, and it was lovely. It was sweet and fragrant with a mint flavour that was perfectly dosed so as not to be overpowering. You don't get a powerful hit like you do with mint sauce, just a delicate minty freshness coupled with a sweetness that everybody, even the kids who aren't usually keen on salad, loved.
Looking at the ingredients list, it's a mixture of water, glucose syrup, sugar, cornflour, salt, acidity regulator, mint, natural colour and preservative. It only contains 1% mint which is why it's not overpowering and I was slightly surprised to see that sugar and glucose syrup are the top ingredients after water. Maybe using it on salad isn't such a good idea then, as that must surely raise the calorie count quite considerably.
Unfortunately, as I've mentioned in my other reviews of Just Add... products, the packaging and even the website is totally lacking in nutritional information, so your guess is as good as mine! I have brought this to their attention and they've said they'lll update the website to give more nutritional information in the future.
Judging it purely on taste though, it's a lovely light, sweet dressing that works well on salad or would go with cold leftover lamb, as well as being used as a drizzle for potatoes and vegetables as suggested on the pack.
star rating : 4/5
RRP : 65p for 30g
Other reviews you may be interested in :
great read fancying trying some mint on my next salad bowl
ReplyDeletesounds nice and really reasonably priced
ReplyDeletefortunatly im not a calorie counter so will definatly be trying this the serving suggestion on pack looks yummy
ReplyDeleteYummy, these sound lovely, but it would have to be on the potatoes. Salads don't work in our household - although I'm working on it.
ReplyDelete@mumoffunkids