For meats, chicken, or tofu, a salad dressing marinade is an easy way to add a punch of flavor.
No shame in a shortcut
I’ve learned that highly-regarded professional chefs sometimes take shortcuts by using prepared ingredients, like sauces, in their cooking. This has made me bolder in experimenting with my own shortcuts, and one of mine is to use salad dressing as a marinade.
The first time I did it I combined Caesar salad dressing with bottled barbecue sauce, and marinated steak tips overnight – which were astonishingly good when grilled the next day.
For a long time I kept this “recipe” a secret. When steak tips went on sale I’d buy a bunch, throw them in one or two sealable gallon bags and add a generous squirt of salad dressing and the same amount of barbecue sauce. Overnight marinating works best, and it also freezes well. No need to marinate before freezing, the marinating will happen while the meat defrosts.
Which salad dressing for what?
I make my own salad dressing and have a few favorite recipes, though often combine ingredients on a whim. But I also keep a couple of bottles of commercial salad dressing in my pantry; I don’t put them on salads but I use them as a component of marinades.
Caesar salad dressing is terrific for meats and poultry. Sometimes I’ll add a dollop of barbecue sauce or mild hot sauce.
A dressing I like for chicken kebabs is one I tested for the Pollan Family Table that includes white balsamic vinegar and raspberry vinegar. Chicken marinates quickly and you don’t want to leave it in a strong-flavored marinade for very long; for kebabs, an hour or two in the fridge at most.
My family’s favorite salad dressing is the creation of our friend Vasilka Nicolova. It’s flavored strongly with lemon and garlic, and is also great made with balsamic vinegar instead of lemon. Its piquant flavor is great on salads to accompany roasts and braised foods, but it is also an excellent marinade for lamb planned for the grill.
For meatless grilling or broiling, I like a marinade with Asian flavors. Whisk together 3/4 cup vegetable oil, 1/4 cup rice vinegar, 1/4 cup mirin, 2 tablespoons soy or tamari sauce, and 1 tablespoon sesame oil. Add 2 teaspoons sesame seeds and 1 finely sliced scallions. This is a great marinade for tofu and nice brushed over vegetables on the grill.
Not lazy, but smart
I joke about being a lazy cook, but I don’t really mean it. Efficiency in the kitchen is smart if it produces healthy foods. When I’m buying bottled sauces, I look at ingredients and choose products without added sugars and little or no salt. When I’m making my own salad dressings, I double or triple the recipe. The dressings will usually keep a week or two and will have a second life as a ready-made marinade.
My daughter Sara was visiting last week and I’d bought a boneless butterflied lamb roast to marinate overnight in olive oil and garlic and dried herbs, but then I had a better idea. Sara had volunteered to make her homemade dressing for our lunch salad. She warned me that there was much more than we’d need in the jar she’d shaken up. That was all I needed to hear. I put the lamb in a plastic bag, poured in the leftover salad dressing, and refrigerated it. It was easy, and even better, the next day the flavor of the grilled lamb was perfection. Lazy cooking maybe, but also smart. 
