Inside the Formula: Spicy Blackberry Honey…

Inside the Formula: Spicy Blackberry Honey Balsamic Vinaigrette
Flavor, functionality and a laundry list of marketing benefits. That’s the contributions honey makes to this vinaigrette the National Honey Board formulated as part of our recent efforts to showcase honey’s ability to improve the flavor, body and sales of salad dressings.

This blog post gives insights into the ideation, formulation and finalization of a clean label salad dressing designed for food manufacturers with minimal ingredients (7) and maximum flavor. If you would like a copy of the formula and processing notes, email [email protected].

The Ideation of a Vinaigrette with Honey
For this project, the National Honey Board’s innovation team was focused on creating salad dressings with honey as the only sweetener. We also wanted to capitalize on America’s obsession with sweet heat flavor profiles.

Swicy products are easy to execute in potato chips and condiments, where strong heat is favorable. For salad dressings, it’s a bit more challenging because no one wants to force down a glass of milk while they enjoy a plate of fresh greens. We needed the dressing to have a nuanced heat that was perfectly balanced with the other core ingredients. This led us down the path of using a fruit puree as a core ingredient, giving us a flavor profile with sweet, heat and tart notes.

Product Requirements of a Vinaigrette with Honey
These are the core product targets our formulation needed to hit to be successful:

• Clean label: It’s table stakes in 2026 to have no artificial or synthetic ingredients.

• Honey as the sole sweetener: In some products, honey works synergistically with other sweeteners to perform specific functions. That’s not required in dressings, so honey had to be the only sweetener used.

• Balanced: As a salad dressing, we wanted to deliver a very subtle heat.

Ingredient Selection of a Vinaigrette with Honey
Notes on the core ingredients used to create the spicy blackberry honey balsamic vinaigrette.

• Light amber honey: We used a flavorful honey with strong floral and fruity aromatics. The aromatics were an important part in delivering a complete sensory flavor experience.

• Blackberry puree: Chosen for its depth and tartness up front, which creates a more dynamic experience as the sweetness and heat come through mid-palate.

• Calabrian chili paste: Used for its fruity chili character that is clean and immediate. We didn’t want to use a heat source that lingered in a salad dressing.

Processing Notes for the Spicy Blackberry Honey Balsamic Vinaigrette
Made similar to any vinaigrette and does not require any special equipment or processes.

Honey’s Emulsion Capabilities in Salad Dressings
Honey’s viscous nature allows for its inclusion in the overall thickening scheme of a dressing. A 2022 research paper, Emulsification Capability of Light Amber Honey in Industrial Salad Dressing Applications, found honey has strong emulsification capabilities that can be beneficial in salad dressing applications as a processing aid and as a serving aid.

According to the research, honey may be used to replace xanthan gum as a processing aid in dressing manufacturing using a single-fill process. Honey may be favorable over the use of xanthan gum because it does not contribute to a visible emulsified layer between oil and water phases.

In a comparable way, honey is beneficial as a serving aid because upon a brief bottle shake, it suspends the two phases long enough to pour over a salad. Furthermore, when looking for alternatives to using gums in separating salad dressing applications, honey would be a strong candidate for this type of application.

Although honey functions well as an emulsifier, it does not form a stable emulsion. For dressings that require a stable emulsification, the use of xanthan gum with honey or other stabilizers may be needed.

Modifications to Consider
Two of the three core ingredients (blackberry puree and calabrian chili paste) of the spicy blackberry honey balsamic vinaigrette can be swapped to produce distinct new flavors or to further cost-optimize the formula. Honey provides an exceptional foundation for heat and tart, allowing product developers to further tailor the heat and fruit intensity.

Applications for the Spicy Blackberry Honey Balsamic Vinaigrette
Although the formula was developed for industrial salad dressing manufacturers, its ingredient list is accessible for both foodservice operations and consumers. Email [email protected] for the formula.