Preserved Lemon Vinaigrette

This Preserved Lemon Vinaigrette recipe is bursting with bright and fresh lemon flavor with just a hint of sweetness. Made with briny and floral preserved lemons, this vinaigrette is delicious on fresh green salads, as a marinade or a dressing for grain bowls or grilled meats.

If you are looking for a unique yet familiar dressing, this preserved lemon vinaigrette is prefect for you to try. It is well balanced between tart fresh lemon juice, salty and pungent preserved lemons and sweet maple syrup. Mix up a mason jar of this lemon dressing and use throughout the week on salads, like our Arugula and Crispy Quinoa Salad or Za'atar Chicken and Crispy Pita Salad, or drizzle on our Pulled Chicken in a Dutch Oven or our Perfect Seared Shrimp with Garlic and Herbs.

This vinaigrette gets its unique flavor from preserved lemons, which are essentially pickled fresh lemons. They are widely used in Moroccan cuisine, among others, and add intense lemon flavor to sauces, stews and tagines. The rind has the brightest, most intense flavor, but the pulp is also bursting with bright, slightly sweet lemon flavor. When mixed with fresh lemon juice and balanced with maple syrup, the resulting vinaigrette is a perfect balance of acid, salt and sweet.

Jump to:

• Ingredients that Matter
• Instructions
• Substitutions
• Equipment
• Preserved Lemon
• Storage
• FAQ
• More Sauces
• Dinner Ideas
• Recipe

Ingredients that Matter

This recipe is really all about the preserved lemon, but there are a handful of other ingredients that play a critical role. Here are the ingredients you'll need for this recipe:

• Preserved Lemons. These pickled lemons are often available in the international aisle at your local mega grocery store. You can also find them at specialty markets, especially at Middle Eastern grocery stores. They are typically sold in jars packed in their own brine. Be sure to store them in the refrigerator after opening. They'll last a long, long time! In fact, if stored in the fridge in their brine, they should stay good for years.
• Fresh Lemon Juice. While preserved lemons have a ton of intense lemon flavor, we want a bit of the harsher acid found in fresh lemon juice to create a balanced vinaigrette.
• Maple Syrup or Honey. Preserved lemons have a touch of natural sweetness, but adding just a hint more sweetness helps balance the flavors of this dressing. Reach for either maple syrup or honey.
• Dijon Mustard. Just ½ teaspoon of mustard is enough to emulsify the vinaigrette, plus it adds just a touch more pungent flavor and a bit of heat.
• Olive Oil. I recommend using regular olive oil, but you can certainly use extra virgin olive oil if you like a more fruity, bitter dressing. You can also use a more neutral oil like vegetable, peanut, corn, etc.
• Parsley. While fresh chopped parsley serves as a garnish, it also adds a nice herbaceous flavor to this dressing.
• Black Pepper. A noticeable omission from this recipe is table salt (there's plenty of salt still on the preserved lemons), but a big pinch of black pepper adds a nice punch of spice.

See recipe card for quantities.

Instructions

This lemon vinaigrette is really easy to make, plus there are a few variations depending on the equipment you have at home. Here is how this recipe comes together:

Hint: It's important to rinse the preserved lemon before using it. Preserved lemons are very salty and rinsing them will help remove some of that saltiness.

Substitutions

This recipe has a little wiggle room in terms of substitutions and adjustments. Here are some suggestions:

• Use a Full Preserved Lemon - If you want to use up a full preserved lemon, simply double the rest of the ingredients. A double recipe will make about 1 ½ cups of vinaigrette.
• Oil - Regular olive oil works well for this vinaigrette, but you can also use a more neutral vegetable oil, peanut oil or a stronger extra virgin olive oil.
• Aromatics - This dressing is intensely lemony, but you can add more pockets of flavor with things like a minced garlic or finely chopped shallot.

Equipment

This recipe comes together super fast by using an immersion blender, a regular blender or a small food processor. Some of my favorite of these equipment include this Mueller Smart Stick 800W Handheld Immersion Blender, Vitamix Propel 510 Blender or this KitchenAid 5 Cup Food Chopper.

Preserved Lemon

You can often find preserved lemons in the international section of your local grocery store or at a specialty or international market. You will typically find them in a jar (like the one below) with whole, halved or quartered lemon sections in their brine.

Preserved lemons are made by cleaning fresh lemons then rubbing or soaking them in a salt (and sometimes, lemon juice and spice mixture). They may be left at room temperature to ferment then jarred or stored directly in the refrigerator to stop the fermentation process.

At culinary school we made preserved lemons during one block. I remember washing many pounds of fresh lemons, then cutting them into quarters (though not cutting through the entire lemon so they were left in tact) then rubbing them in salt, pressing them into a big and covering with more salt. By the time our 3-week block was done, they were ready for the fridge and the next class would make more.

Since preserved lemons are so salty, it is recommended to rinse them and dry them before using. Some recipes may even call for simmering them briefly in water to remove the salt brine. When only using a small amount, however, a simple rinse will work just fine. If you've never worked with preserved lemons, you should try adding them to more than juice dressings like this recipe. Try chopping them up and adding to a rice dish, a marinade, stew, soups, and even for cocktails.

Storage

This dressing may be stored in the same mason jar you used to make it. Be sure to cover it with a tight lid and store in the refrigerator for up to one week. I don't recommend freezing this vinaigrette.

If you have some leftover dressing and you aren't sure what to do with it, try using it as a marinade on chicken, shrimp or even tofu. Or, add to a a grain, even or crispy quinoa, or you can use it as a dip or sauce for our Red Lentil Patties, Lemon Caper Pasta or easy and vegan Chickpea Fritters.

FAQ

More Sauces

Looking for other sauce and dressing recipes like this? Try these:

Dinner Ideas

Need some inspiration for dinner tonight? Try these recipes:

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