Universal Salad Dressing-In Time for Labor Day Parties

I through together a hybrid salad to bring to the lake. I over shopped and needed to clear some room and had two smallish chicken breasts. I was also in the mood for the broccoli, bacon, raisin salad, but I end up eating way too much of it myself. I ended up combining a knock off D'Amico and Son's Turkey Cherry salad recipe, with the broccoli salad and ended up with a new to me, delicious pasta salad  made from broccoli, craisins, dried bacon bits, sunflower seeds, chicken, and rainbow rotini. The binder to this all is what I can only describe as a universal dressing. I've included variation of this dressing before, but it just dawned on me today that I use this over and over, and it is always a hit, and ingredients for it are always on hand, plus, it is so versatile, my fridge, freezer, and pantry is sure to have stuff to combine to make a last minute side dish or hearty salad. 

2 TBLS sugar
2TBLS apple cider vinegar
1/2-3/4 cup mayonnaise
1 tsp pepper

Dissolve sugar in vinegar, add mayo and pepper, stir or shake until combined to a pourable consistency. Increase quantities proportionality to the food you are choosing to combine. 

In my salad today, I made batch one to coat the broccoli, bacon, sunflowers, and craisins. Then, when the past a was done and cooled, I stirred the pasta and chicken in with the other ingredients, and used a second recipe to combine all. I love pepper so probably used more than 1 tsp. Other combinations that I think are delicious are:

• Spinach and strawberries with crumbled goat cheese-use as a salad dressing
• Canned tuna, celery, and onion-sweeter sandwich spread, or as a cracker spread
• Cucumbers, tomato, and onion-almost makes a pickle like salad (I marinate for hours to really let the onion flavor soak in as well)
• Layered salad-use between layers of greens, assorted vegetables, and cheese-when serving, the dressing naturally coats
• Cabbage-use in place of coleslaw dressing

I like that as a summer salad binder, it is lighter than just pure mayonnaise. A little goes a long way as a salad dressing, probably because of the vinegar. If you give this a try or have a variation you use, please share in your comments your combinations.