Trader Joe's Thousand Island Dressing

For the history and variety of ingredients found in Thousand Island dressing, see here.

Confession: I've never previously had Thousand Island dressing. There's a specific reason for this. When I was in high school, I worked at a restaurant, and I watched the assistant manager mixing up a big batch of their house version of Thousand Island dressing, with her bare arm deep in the pot, manually stirring in ketchup and pickle relish. It was a pretty revolting sight. Even since then, when I see it on the store shelf or hear it offered as a choice in a restaurant, I flash back to that and recoil. So buying this bottle at Trader Joe's was a step of personal recovery from adolescent trauma. (OK, "trauma" might be too strong a word there. How about "ickiness"?)

The TJ's version has water, soybean oil, tomato paste, egg yolks, dehydrated onion, salt, cornstarch, cucumber juice, and 10 other ingredients that I don't feel like typing out. It's complicated.

Is it good? Well, it's OK. I've had over half of the bottle now, over the course of maybe a dozen salads. I don't object to it, but it has not become a favorite. It's kind of a weird mix of flavors that just doesn't sit right with me. It's good enough that I'll finish it off, gradually, rather than throw it away, but not good enough to get again.

But I can say this in its favor: It has broken my reflexive aversion to the genre, and made me willing to try other brands.


Will I buy it again? 

No.