Recipe or ingredients in Lou Malnati's 1000 Island Dressing

Lou's had the absolute best 1000 Island Dressing.
I don't live in Chicago anymore, but get tons of it to bring back when I visit.
Does anyone have a clue how it is made or the actual ingredients in it/amounts.
I soooo want to make a ton of it myself.

I logged in here just to find this exact info.
Hoping someone who maybe worked there in the past can shed some light.
It is the BEST 1000 island.

When Lou was interviewed on America's Test Kitchen, he absolutely refused to discuss what ingredients were in his crust. I doubt that the line workers know what is in the salad dressing and the company appears to be very protective of their recipes.

I don't think we ever tried the 1000 Island dressing but we will next time on this recommendation.

The dressing that we wanted the recipe for is Lou Malnati's sweet vinaigrette. We discovered this dressing by accidentally getting it with a pick-up pizza-and-salad order.

There are apparently two vinegar-and-oil-based dressings at Lou's: One is an "adult" straight forward 'italian' red wine vinegar and oil -- quite good if that is what you are looking for. On the interwebs, there is a guy who posted what he says is the recipe for Lou's Italian vinaigrette that is taken from a Tribune article. blog.jakeparrillo.com There is a screen shot of the recipe captured from the framed article hanging on the wall of the restaurant, he says.

The other vinegar and oil dressing I have heard called the "House" dressing and it is a sweet vinaigrette, not Italian-y (meaning not oregano and garlic). Wow it hit the spot for me. The dressing is a little thickened but not creamy or opaque. I try to stay away from it because it awakens my otherwise dormant sweet tooth. Yum.

The dressings are so good that it motivates us to order those otherwise pathetic over-priced salads. Even six- or eight-years ago, the salads were reasonably sized albeit based on iceberg lettuce. But over the past years the salads have become smaller and smaller. The tomatoes, once thin wedges, became chopped. Then the amount of tomatoes on the salad started to dwindle down until it was just a joke. A few small cubes of chopped tomato on an ever-smaller amount of iceberg.

Since Lou's sells 16-oz bottles of the Sweet Vinaigrette, we make our own salads.

Not sure what is legal to post here...
Google is your friend for the house red wine vinaigrette.
There is even an old clipping from a Chicago newspaper out there.

If I were you, I'd Ask Uncle Phaedrus

tcdup wrote:If I were you, I'd Ask Uncle Phaedrus

what an AWESOME site - thank you!

jilter wrote:Not sure what is legal to post here...
Google is your friend for the house red wine vinaigrette.
There is even an old clipping from a Chicago newspaper out there.

When in doubt, link to the page you are referencing.

Joy wrote:I don't think we ever tried the 1000 Island dressing but we will next time on this recommendation.

The dressings are so good that it motivates us to order those otherwise pathetic over-priced salads. Even six- or eight-years ago, the salads were reasonably sized albeit based on iceberg lettuce. But over the past years the salads have become smaller and smaller. The tomatoes, once thin wedges, became chopped. Then the amount of tomatoes on the salad started to dwindle down until it was just a joke. A few small cubes of chopped tomato on an ever-smaller amount of iceberg.

Their 1000 Island is quite good, had it last time we ate in the Buffalo Grove store--it made the house salad much better.

Regarding the chopped tomatoes on the Malnati salad, whatever that stuff is marinated in--some type of bizarre garlic oil--it just don't do it for me, in that it 'repeats', for lack of a better term. We've gone to asking them to sub out sliced fresh tomatoes, which they've done no problem.

BTW, I am really starting to dig their thin pizza lately, sausage & mushroom.

tcdup wrote:If I were you, I'd Ask Uncle Phaedrus

So, this was neat, but did not have what I was looking for.
I am wondering in our world today of we-need-to-know-it-all, there is a site where one could send in food for analysis of ingredients.
I know such places exist for nutritional and dietary info such as allergens, but it would be cool to get a break-down of ingredients.

A simple trial and error should get you to the right place. Thousand Island dressing is very easy to make with only a few ingredients that really affect the flavor. What is it that sets Lou's apart? More garlic? More pickles? More pepper? Or does it taste like they add something to set it apart?

I went to Lou Malnati's for lunch last week specifically to check out the 1000 island dressing because I'm a fan of a good version. I was a little surprised at what I got. It's a very mayo heavy version, with just enough ketchup to turn it pink, and perhaps a very, very little bit of garlic powder. Most surprising was the total absence of any pieces of egg or pickle (the "1000 islands"). The dressing was completely smooth. It was decent, but certainly not transcendent and, to my mind, pretty easy to duplicate with a minimal number of ingredients.

jilter wrote:

tcdup wrote:If I were you, I'd Ask Uncle Phaedrus

So, this was neat, but did not have what I was looking for.
I am wondering in our world today of we-need-to-know-it-all, there is a site where one could send in food for analysis of ingredients.
I know such places exist for nutritional and dietary info such as allergens, but it would be cool to get a break-down of ingredients.

This can absolutely be done. Just how much money are you willing to throw at this? I would think $1,000 would be on the low side.

lougord99 wrote:

jilter wrote:

tcdup wrote:If I were you, I'd Ask Uncle Phaedrus

So, this was neat, but did not have what I was looking for.
I am wondering in our world today of we-need-to-know-it-all, there is a site where one could send in food for analysis of ingredients.
I know such places exist for nutritional and dietary info such as allergens, but it would be cool to get a break-down of ingredients.

This can absolutely be done. Just how much money are you willing to throw at this? I would think $1,000 would be on the low side.

At that price, wouldn't you just be better off buying it in bulk from Lou's? $1,000 would pretty much cover a lifetime supply, I think.

If we had a gas chromatograph at our facility, I'd offer to run the sample in exchange for a good bottle of bourbon. Alas . . .

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:

lougord99 wrote:

jilter wrote:
So, this was neat, but did not have what I was looking for.
I am wondering in our world today of we-need-to-know-it-all, there is a site where one could send in food for analysis of ingredients.
I know such places exist for nutritional and dietary info such as allergens, but it would be cool to get a break-down of ingredients.

This can absolutely be done. Just how much money are you willing to throw at this? I would think $1,000 would be on the low side.

At that price, wouldn't you just be better off buying it in bulk from Lou's? $1,000 would pretty much cover a lifetime supply, I think.

=R=

It's free for the asking in little 2 or 3 oz to go cups. At least it is in Lincolnwood.

The restaurant salad dressing thread reminded me of this.
Too bad Malnati's does not see fit to sell all of their salad dressings.
It is annoying to me each time to have to ask for at least 3 of those little cups of dressing they have in order to sufficiently dress their 6.00 salads.

Hey Jilter -
I called and ordered an 8 oz and a 16 oz container of Lou's 1k island for my St Patty's day Reubens this year. No issue at all. They had it ready for me for pickup. No hassle whatsoever, the person on the phone told me what sizes I could get, like it was no big deal. Way cheaper than I thought it would be, too.

I'm pretty sure I could re-create their 1k Island, like SteveZ said. It's just real mayo, with very little of the other standards, but heavy garlic, and a little backnote of red-pepper, maybe even a hint of a different ground hot pepper, but I'm guessing plain old cayenne. I'm amazed by how often ppl say foods like this with less sugar than usual is, "the best ever." It's just kind of a "well, of course it's better" thing, (imo.) Sugary salad dressings, sugary tartar sauce - just foul, imo. Never understood why so many restaurants prefer to serve things like tartar sauce, potato salad, tuna salad, chicken salad, cole slaw, even sandwiches with sugar laden mayo substitutes, but I'm guessing most of the public wants their food to be sweetened like this, or they wouldn't be serving it.

seebee,
This is very good info, and I thank you.
May I ask which location was so accommodating?

I will make it for you for 500.00.