Olive Gardens House Salad & Dressing {Potluck Sunday}

One of my favorite restaurants to eat at is Olive Garden. Although I don't get to eat there as often as I like, when I do I love just about anything they serve. My favorite thing to order is their soup, salad and bread sticks. Last weekend when we were out of town visiting family we got to pop in for a quick lunch.

I knew immediately what I was going to order, Chicken & Gnocchi Soup, salad and bread sticks. Zuppa Toscana is the soup I usually order, but the chicken and Gnocchi seems to be my new favorite. I love Olive Gardens House Salad, so I was excited to see the copy cat version all over the Internet.

I can honestly say that the copy cat salad was a dead ringer for the real thing. I did add more black olives to the salad than called for. I just don't think Olive Garden adds enough for my taste. We always seem to fight over them at the restaurant.

The dressing on the other hand was a different story. The Copy Cat dressing recipe was a creamy dressing and I don't recall the dressing being creamy at Olive Garden. It was still good, but a bit on the thin side for my taste. I did some searching to see if I could find a dressing that was similar to the real thing.

I think I found one, but just haven't had the chance to try it yet. I included both recipes so you can choose which one you would like to use. I remember the dressing at Olive Garden to be more like a Italian Dressing rather than a creamy one, so I will try the new dressing recipe the next time. In the end I loved the salad so more than likely this salad will be a regular in our house.

OK now it's your turn, do you have a recipe you would like to bring to our virtual potluck? If so then link up your recipe at the end of this post. Please link directly to your post, not your homepage and don't forget to include a link back to Mommy's Kitchen. I would like to thank everyone who participates in Potluck Sunday every week. I hope y'all will take some time and stop by and visit all of these wonderful blogs.

If you decide to go with the creamy house dressing, I recommend making it a day ahead and refrigertating. This will give the dressing some time to thicken up a bit as well as letting the flavors blend together. Also if you're looking for a good bread stick recipe to go with your salad you can try the pizza hut style bread sticks. These are so soft and favorite in our house.

Olive Garden Salad {Copy Cat Version}

Ingredients:
1 - bag romaine lettuce (just use the hearts)
4-5 - slices red onion
1 - cup large whole black olives
2-4 - Pepperoncini's
1/2 - cup or more croutons
1 or 2 - tomatoes, quartered
freshly grated Romano cheese

Dressing:
1/2 - cup mayonnaise
1/3 - cup white vinegar
1 - tablespoon vegetable oil
2 - tablespoon corn Syrup
2 - tablespoon Parmesen cheese
2 - tablespoon Romano cheese
1/2 - garlic clove
2 - tablespoons sugar
1/2 - teaspoon Italian Seasoning
1/2 - teaspoon p. parsley Flakes
1 Tbsp. lemon Juice

Combine salad ingredients and toss. Mix all dressing ingredients in a blender until well mixed.

If this is a little too tart for your tastes, add a little extra sugar. Serve with olive gardens house salad.

Recipe Source: Copy Cat Recipes

As I mentioned above I found another version of the Olive Garden House dressing. Click here to get the recipe. This recipe seems to be more like the original dressing served at Olive Garden.

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