Applebee’s Oriental Salad Dressing

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July 11, 2010 47 Comments

I have to admit that the Applebee’s Oriental Salad Dressing had me stumped, and stumped for a long time. I love the sweet, almost smoky flavor of the Applebee’s Oriental Salad Dressing—I haven’t been able to go into that restaurant and not order extra salad dressing each time. So I began the experimenting. This salad dressing is a variation on vinaigrette. Vinaigrettes are made with vinegar, oil, seasonings, and Dijon mustard. Since this dressing was creamy, adding mayonnaise gives this dressing creaminess. And for the oil, we use regular sesame oil (that you’d use for cooking) plus toasted sesame oil. Using all toasted sesame oil overpowers the salad dressing, so you just want to use a touch of it in the dressing for an enhanced flavor.

oriental salad dressing in a dish

Applebee’s Oriental Salad Dressing

Applebees Salad Dressing

Author: CopyKat Recipes
Recipe Type: Salad Dressing, copy cat recipe
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 10 minutes
Serves: 8

You can prepare this salad dressing. It tastes just like Applebee’s Oriental Salad Dressing. This is such an easy recipe to make.

Ingredients

Yield: approximately 3/4 cup.
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons refined sesame oil
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Instructions

In a medium bowl combine sugar and rice vinegar and mix until sugar is completely dissolved. Add the mayonnaise, both sesame oils, and the mustard and stir until well blended. Refrigerate the salad dressing in a covered container for up to 1 week.

Notes About the Ingredients

Rice vinegar is carried in most grocery stores, be careful not to purchase the seasoned rice wine vinegar, as it is sweetened and makes the dressing way too sweet.

The refined sesame oil can be found in the regular section of the oils in a grocery store. For the toasted sesame oil, look in the Asian section of your grocery store.

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You can find many more copycat restaurant recipes that taste just like Applebee's Restaurant Recipes here at CopyKat.com.

Naomi Martinez

Thank you I love this salad dressing…
melody

I just picked up these ingredients and i looked and looked for rice wine vinegar but only found rice vinegar and then the rice wine vinegar that is seasoned. I didn’t get the rice vinegar cuz it didn’t say wine. Then i noticed in ur picture of said ingredients the labelled says rice vinegar is there a difference. Also i couldn’t find the toasted seed oil looked everywhere in store will it matter if i don’t use it.
chef

I used to be a manager at Applebee’s and occasionally we would run out of oriental dressing so we would make a home made version of it by using cole slaw dressing and teriyaki sauce, never had any complaints about it
Tere <3

….or just use cole slaw dressing…it has all the ingredients above in it i just tried it and it taste identical to Applebees Oriental Chicken salad…for a thinner consistancy i just added alittle water
- http://www.thenerdynurse.com/ The Nerdy Nurse
  
  tried this suggestion today, and it was NOT the same. Made my salad very very sad. Edible, but not nearly as good as the Applebee’s version.
Hiconnetts

Hi! I used to be interested in the Applebee’s Oriental Salad and frequently ordered it, until a local Applebee’s manager divulged a little known secret. The ingredient hidden in the dressing which makes the dressing so flavorful is bacon fat. They use the bacon fat left over from the breakfast bacon frying to inexpensively make up their dressing for the day.
- sdm
  
  that manager was being nice; it’s not bacon fat it’s chicken fat. i used to work there too
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Kelli

I make the Applebee’s dressing all the time at home, but mine uses honey instead of sugar. The honey gives you the color/consistency that you want, plus it doesn’t leave a grainy texture.
Campindad72

I had a different Applebee’s Asian/Oriental salad dressing from around 1999, but have lost It. It was darker than this recipe and a little thicker. I don’t remember it having the rice wine vinegar, though can’t remember what else besides mayo, dijon, sesame oil and it was soooo incredibly good. I liked this one ok, but I would love to have the other! Thank you.
Campindad72

I had a different Applebee’s Asian/Oriental salad dressing from around 1999, but have lost It. It was darker than this recipe and a little thicker. I don’t remember it having the rice wine vinegar, though can’t remember what else besides mayo, dijon, sesame oil and it was soooo incredibly good. I liked this one ok, but I would love to have the other! Thank you.
Becky

So, where did the recipe go? It was here before and now all I see is a video.
Becky

So, where did the recipe go? It was here before and now all I see is a video.
Becky

So, where did the recipe go? It was here before and now all I see is a video.
Danielle

Hi, I was wondering what the measurements were for the ingredients? I couldn’t tell if they were cups or 1/2 cups. Thank you.
Tasty!

Soooooo good! Mine didn’t have the same consistancy as Applebee’s and the taste wasn’t exactly it but this is by far one of the best (and easiest) dressings I’ve had! I looove it. I’m keeping this, what a fast meal and better than other quick food choices. Thanks for sharing!
- Stephanie Manley
  
  The salad dressing you made was made without any stabilizers or thickeners, it is a little thinner, but for ingredients available in your grocery store, it was as close as I could get!
Azot629

Oh My Goodness! This dressing is absolutely wonderful!! What a super pleasant surprise!! Will be making this dressing again, and again, and again!!
Anonymous

I’m not stumped! I asked a waitress one day and she told me it was Marzetti oriental salad dressing. I use Tyson breaded chicken, salad, chow mein noodles, sliced almonds and Marzetti. Bam! thats it.
Anonymous

I’m not stumped! I asked a waitress one day and she told me it was Marzetti oriental salad dressing. I use Tyson breaded chicken, salad, chow mein noodles, sliced almonds and Marzetti. Bam! thats it.
Laura C.

I just buy jarred coleslaw dressing. The kind from Marie’s or Litehouse brand. It is tasty. This had me stumped to as to what it was. It is the prefect tangy and sweet taste. Also, when the oriental chicken salad came out they used to put green onions in it because of a food poisoning scare. When the scare passed,the salad never got them again so at home I am able to add to it.
Sue

I love the salad dressing at Lucy’s El Adobe in Los Angeles but can’t find the recipe anywhere.
Can anyone help?
Becky

Still looking for Ragazzi’s house dressing recipe . Anyone have a clue?
- http://www.copykat.com Stephanie
  
  I am sorry I don’t have a recipe similar to Ragazzi’s.
Kathi

love it – what makes it takes like it has maple flavoring?
- http://www.copykat.com Stephanie
  
  Kathi, I have no idea, I don’t taste maple, I taste nutty, and the toasted sesame oil takes care of that flavor.
- Ellie
  
  I made this today and it was off – until I added some maple syrup. And I had the Applebee’s dressing next to me to compare. There is TOTALLY maple in there IMO.
Olga Uy

hi!:) I used white wine vinegar instead of rice wine vinegar and it’s not as good.
- http://www.copykat.com Stephanie
  
  White Vinegar just doesn’t have the seasoning the white rice wine vinegar has.
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secret

The real oriental dressing is made from ground chicken and chicken stock. just FYI. been working at Applebees for 2 years now.
- Llnelson02
  
  their is no ground chicken in the oriental dressing at applebees? is their? I don’t see how that could be, it is a smooth dressing, couldn’t get any smoother…anyone know if this is true of if the marzetti oriental dressing it right?
http://Website(optional) Deirdre

This dressing is delicous – I absolutely love it. Thank You!
Janis Holte-Pavlatos

Do you have a recipe for Top the Tater?

It’s a sour cream, chives, onion dip or potato topping (A Kemps product)

Thanks for your request, I will keep it in mind. I haven’t seen this product before. Sounds tasty though!
http://allfororphans.com Dawne

Thank you for this! I’m so happy to have found this recipe.

One of my all-time favourite salad dressings is really a BBQ sauce – Bob Evan’s Wildlife BBQ Sauce. It’s part of a salad with breaded chicken strips. Now that I no longer live in the States I really miss it.
Pez

The first time I tasted the applebees oriental chicken salad dressing I could immediately tell that it contained Plum Sauce … that is the “oriental” sauce that is based on apricots.
If you decide to give the formula another try with plum sauce, please let me know of your results. Thanks.
You know I really didn’t detect any plum sauce in there, but if you would like to share your results, we would love to see them! ~Stephanie
Brianna

i cannot find rice wine vinegar at all in stores. so i used just rice vinegar and clearly it was not the same taste. so im wondering if there is a way to doctor the dressing if i use rice vinegar to get the same taste?
You know it is fairly common, I have found this at Wal Mart of all places. ~Stephanie
- http://www.facebook.com/lisa.morinpeterson Lisa Morin Peterson
  
  Look at her ingredients closely..It is just rice vinegar..No Wine listed. Also the “toasted” sesame oil just says sesame oil. I wish I would have noticed the images b4 scouring the store. Hope this is worth all of the ingredients I just purchased.
  - http://www.facebook.com/randy.carl.5 Randy Carl
    
    There are two types of sesame oil.. regular and toasted and they are very different. This uses both
- Jcloutz
  
  Rice wine vinegar and rice vinegar are the same thing, fyi
Berni

Looking for the Sesame Thai dressing in the Nature’s Table Rice Bowl – will be trying this receipe in the hopes it comes close
I hope the dressing works out well for you. I haven’t tried the Sesame Thai dressing by Nature’s Table Rice Bowl.~Stephanie
Nancy

If I don’t want to buy a whole bottle of toasted sesame oil for just 1 tsp, could I use all sesame oil instead? I am trying to replicate a Thai salad dressing I had at a Thai restaurant and I know two of the ingredients were mustard and honey. I hope this recipe comes close even tho it has sugar instead of honey.

There are a couple of different things, I think the dressing works best with the combination of the toasted sesame oil and the regular. I can’t say the results will be the same. My suggestion would be to use a toasted sesame oil, and then use a very neutral oil like vegetable oil instead of the non toasted sesame oil, I recommend that if you don’t want to purchase two different bottles of oil. The toasted sesame oil is fairly inexpensive I think it was under 3 dollars.
Sugar – I used sugar because I couldn’t taste any honey in the dressing. My second guess was honey is an expensive ingredient, and my thinking is restaurants typically stay away from more expensive ingredients when others will work. I could be wrong on this particular case. Since I have’t tried your dressing from your Thai restaurant, I really can’t comment on how to prepare that recipe. Good luck on trying your recipe out!~stephanie
Ted Baida

Actually, the best salad dressings I’ve had, lately, have been BOTTLED from the store. Kraft Tuscan, Creamy Caesar and Caesar Vinagrette. VERY GOOD.

Thanks for sharing your favorite bottled salad dressings, it is always good to know about a tried and true product ~Stephanie
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http://frantasticfood.com Fran

Ah, I wouldn’t have expected mustard, but it is an emulsifier in dressings so that makes sense. I’ve been on the hunt for the perfect dressing for Chinese Chicken Salad since having the one from Houstons over 25 years ago. I’ve come close too, but never spot on. I’m going to try this one might satisfy the craving!
- Pez
  
  Dressings can be made to look “creamy” (emulsified) by simply using 3 parts oil to one part vinegar and then shaking or whisking. Try this and add a spoon of something like orange marmalade etc … this produces an even thicker product. The use of mayonnaise (ie. egg yolks) produces a thicker dressing that will not re-separate quite as quickly … but this may not be what your target calls for anyway.
  Not completely certain about the part of your comment that says “what your target calls for anyway…”. I don’t like to use raw egg products for salad dressings if it is avoidable. I like your suggestion of adding a marmalade to assist in the emulsification of the salad dressing. I never noticed chunks of fruit in this creamy and smooth salad dressing, so I ruled that out in this preparation. I will consider your suggestion for other salad dressing recipes going forward. ~Stephanie
Bruce Manley

Rafferty’s: Ranch & Catalina
Red Lobster: French