Karen from Cheyenne says her “mayonnaise-based, nice ‘n’ thick” bleu cheese and garlic dip and dressing starts separating after a day or two and wants to know how to keep it thick.
Although mayonnaise is a fairly stable emulsion of oil and egg, other dressing ingredients can affect the chemistry and cause the emulsion to destabilize or may not even incorporate into the emulsion and so drain out over time. Commercial dressings use additives such as agar, xanthum gum, or even corn syrup as stabilizers.
My blue cheese drssing includes blue cheese, olive oil, and lemon juice that I run briefly through a food processor. In this case, the oil separates from the cheese within a week. So my nice ‘n’ thick blue cheese dressing also separates after a day or two. I just stir it up again!
2 Responses for "Runny Blue Cheese Dressing Fix"
1/3 cup crumbled blue cheese
1/2 cup mayo (lite)
1/4 cup sour cream (full)
salt and pepper to taste
Blend til well mixed
Went in to the refrigerator as a thick and delightful dip, came out the next morning as SOUP! how can this be avoided in the future?
Karen,
On the face of it there’s no reason it should have broken down. Two possibilities occur to me. First, it may be the the acids in the blue cheese or sour cream caused the “lite” mayo to break. Real mayonnaise is a “natural” emulsion of eggs and oil, but lite mayo is a manufactured emulsion relying on additives instead of the natural proteins in egg to create an emulsion and so it may be sensitive to acids.
The other thought is similar but relates to the sour cream. if it’s “acidified” instead of “cultured” then some ingredient in the mayonnaise or some aspect of the blue cheese might have caused it to break.
Chef Kevin
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