— Anita Conner

In this type of situation, if you're gonna omit the oil, what I would suggest is really finding some other ingredients to bolster and create some of that emulsion sense of creaminess within this type of a recipe. So you could do something like, um, balsamic vinegar in this case, get the best vinegar you can because this flavor is gonna carry the recipe. So it's gonna be a chance to let that balsamic flavor kind of be the star. So in this example, I would recommend, you know, getting a quality balsamic vinegar. I would also, instead of just using like raw garlic, I probably double up on the garlic and the recipe, but I would roast it. So take a whole head of garlic, um, you know, wrap it foil or parchment and then you can roast that in the oven until it's really, really soft and almost creamy. Pop it out of those, um, you know, the, the, the garlic cloves, um, out of the skins and that roasted softness and also the extra amount of garlic is going to be fantastic. So I would do balsamic, a little bit of white bean cooked like just canned white beans or cooked white beans, probably just a few ounces, garlic. And then whatever aromatic herbs you wanted to add to that, you could bolster also with a little bit of tomato product, other fresh tomato or some tomato paste that's gonna add some umami and some depth. Um, and then whatever else you want to kind of give that characteristic sweetness that that balsamic has. Sometimes people might bump that up with a tiny bit of maple syrup or a little bit of date paste or something like that. But balsamic definitely does well with a little bit of a extra sweet pairing in some cases. But take the oil out, create that mouth feel by having really nicely cooked white beans blended thoroughly with your balsamic. Um, thin it out with a little bit of water if you need to. Uh, you might even fit it out with a tiny bit of vegetable stalk if you want some additional umami, but you wanna get that dressing so it's got nice adherence so that when you put it on a salad, it's like sticking to all those leaves without being, you know, gloopy or gloppy or too, or too heavy.