Thousand Island Dressing Recipe

A great use for boiled eggs that people don't always think of is salad dressing. I often put boiled eggs in my salad, but the other day I realized they're and ingredient in thousand island dressing, and decided I needed to try making my own. This dressing is tangy and rich, and goes amazingly with avocado and shrimp.

The history of the salad dressing is rather interesting. It's named for the Thousand Islands area of upstate New York where it was served at dinner parties run by fishing guide George LaLonde Jr. One night actress May Irwin and her husband were having dinner after their fishing trip. May was apparently also a renowned cook and cookbook author and was very impressed with the dressing.

She asked George's wife Sophia for the recipe, and gave it the name 1000 Island Dressing. She passed it along to George C. Boldt, who owned the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York, and the Bellview Stratford in Philadelphia. He had his world famous maitre d' Oscar Tschirky put the dressing on the menu immediately, and so its fame began!

This is my own version of thousand island salad dressing. Usually pickle relish is used, but I didn't have any, so I used pickle juice from a jar in my fridge. I also like that because I don't want the dressing too chunky. Between the pickle juice and grating the onion, the only chunks are the boiled eggs. I love this dressing mainly because I almost always have the ingredients on hand.