This isn't a recipe, it's a technique. A process. Learn to do this, and you can keep your fridge door relatively free of half-full bottles of salad dressing.

The one-minute viniagrette is not a fancy viniagrette. It's not a delicious viniagrette. It is a serviceable viniagrette that actually takes one minute. This isn't some fake Rachael Ray timeframe. The reason it takes one minute is because it's made up entirely of things you should always have within an arm's reach in your kitchen. So there's no grabbing, no digging, no prep work.

You need the bowl your greens or salad are going to be tossed in, a whisk, salt, pepper, garlic powder, a vinegar, and some OK olive oil. These are staples. Hell, these are more than staples, these are the basics of cooking.

I have four vinegars within a foot of my prep area at any time. A red wine, a white wine, a rice, and a balsamic. The red and white I just pick up whatever's on hand or on sale wherever I happen to be when I'm shopping after I've run out.

The balsamic I use is Trader Joe's Gold, because the flavor to price point ratio is as good as I've found.

I tend to buy my rice wine vinegar from Asian grocery stores, but this isn't a quality thing. I go through rice wine vinegar really quickly, so I need large bottles. And you can only get large bottles in Asian groceries or well-stocked ethnic food aisles like the Knollwood Cub. The tiny shitty bottles at the shitty St. Louis Park Rainbow are for emergencies only, and their microscopic size means another emergency a few weeks later anyway, so fuck them.

Back to the viniagrette. No fresh garlic, no mustard, no herbs. Vinegar, pinsh of salt, grind of pepper, pinch of garlic powder, oil to your preferred ration, whisk, toss, done. It's easy... eventually.

The trick is learning to eyeball two different things - first, your preferred ratio of oil to vinegar. Find what you like. I'm more of a 1.5 to one or two to one guy myself, but some people like three to one. I won't judge those freaks.

Plus you have to eyeball the ratios so that the total amount you end up with is the right amount for your greens. Sure, you could make it in a separate container and carefully proportion your finished viniagrette to your salad, but that would take more than a minute, and if it's gonna take more than a minute, you might as well just make a lot of a really good viniagrette and put it in a squeeze bottle and keep the half-full squeeze bottle in the fridge for months.

Just do it in the bowl and try not to go overboard. Or make sure you have enough greens on hand to add a few more if the balance is off.

Use this for weeknight meals when you want something to balance out a heavy meal. If you keep some bagged salad greens on hand, the one minute viniagrette can become a ninety second salad in about 30 seconds, unless you want fancy things like tomatoes in it, in which case adjust your prep times accordingly.