I Tried the Viral Olive Garden Salad Martini, and I Was Pleasantly Surprised

Oh, FoodTok. While some of your recipes make sense, like TikTok spaghetti and baked feta pasta, others are less…intuitive. This viral Olive Garden salad martini is the latest TikTok creation to take the internet by storm, and it made me do a serious double take.

If you have not seen the Olive Garden salad martini yet, it comes from creator @alessandrapizzz, who is known for her inventive cocktails. This recipe involves making a martini using bottled Olive Garden salad dressing as a mix-in and garnishing it with Parmesan cheese, croutons, pepperoncini and olives. Yes, salad dressing in a cocktail.

Shockingly, the comment section is pretty divided, with a good number of followers saying how delicious this martini is. (The other half is firmly in the hard pass category.) I was cautiously optimistic about this take on a martini recipe. If you enjoy mixology, then you might be aware of a technique known as fat-washing. Fat-washing is a process when gin, vodka or other spirits are infused with a form of fat (typically an oil) to enrich the flavor of the cocktail and give it a silkier mouthfeel. It has a similar effect to adding egg whites to a gin fizz. Perhaps this cocktail isn’t quite as strange as it sounds!

Ingredients for the Olive Garden Salad Martini

Lauren Habermehl for Taste of Home

• Vermouth: The first step in this Olive Garden martini recipe is to lightly mist the martini glass with vermouth.
• Parmesan cheese: Rim the glass with finely grated Parmesan cheese. Use a bit of the dressing to help the cheese stick to the rim of the martini glass.
• Gin or vodka: In the TikTok, our creator uses gin; however, use vodka if you prefer a vodka martini.
• Olive Garden salad dressing: Purchase a bottle from your supermarket or use our copycat Olive Garden salad dressing recipe to make some from scratch.
• Olive juice: To make the martini dirty, add an ounce or so of olive juice. In another version of the drink, creator @alessandrapizzz adds pepperoncini juice, which I felt better aligned with the flavors of an Olive Garden salad.
• Italian seasoning: Shake in dry Italian herbs to flavor the drink with notes of basil, rosemary, thyme, oregano and garlic.
• Garnishes: In the TikTok video, the finished cocktail is garnished with black pepper, a drizzle of olive oil and a skewer of basil, olives, Parmesan cheese and croutons. To stay true to an Olive Garden salad, opt for red onion, tomato, olives and pepperoncini peppers.

Directions

Step 1: Prep the martini glass

Spritz a martini glass lightly with vermouth. Then, rim the glass with dressing and finely grated Parmesan cheese. Place the prepared glass in the freezer while you shake the cocktail.

Editor’s Tip: If you don’t have a way to spritz the vermouth, add 1 to 2 teaspoons of vermouth to a martini glass and give it a swirl to coat the entire inside of the glass.

Step 2: Combine the cocktail ingredients and shake

Fill a cocktail shaker halfway with ice. Then, add 3 ounces of vodka, 1 ounce of salad dressing, 1 ounce of olive and/or pepperoncini juice and 1/4 teaspoon of Italian seasoning. Cover and shake the cocktail vigorously for 30 seconds.

Step 3: Pour and garnish

Lauren Habermehl for Taste of Home

Pour the cocktail into the chilled martini glass. Garnish with a few cracks of black pepper and a few drops of olive oil. Add any desired garnishes and then sip away. Cheers!

Is the Olive Garden salad martini…good?

OK, what can I say: TikTok has done it again. The flavors are all there—it really tastes like an Olive Garden salad. The oiliness I worried about isn’t present at all. In fact, even though this isn’t the official way to fat-wash gin, the martini is still richer and smoother because of it. Shaking the martini emulsifies the oil into the cocktail so it’s well dispersed. That said, if you let this drink sit, I imagine it could separate.

The one thing I didn’t enjoy was the floating herbs. I strained the drink well after a few initial sips and found that the herb-less Olive Garden martini had a much more pleasant mouthfeel. If you decide to try this recipe at home, definitely strain it before sipping. That little tweak was a game-changer.