Akron White French Dressing Recipe

Final summer time, for one night time solely, Akron, Ohio’s minor league baseball crew, the RubberDucks, rebranded because the Akron White French. It was an in-joke for Akronites—one which many of the nation would not get. “White French remains to be just about particular to Akron,” says chef Vinnie Cimino, who serves the creamy, mayonnaise-based salad dressing at his Cleveland restaurant, Cordelia.

Cimino lives in Akron, his hometown, and commutes forty-five minutes to the restaurant. That is additional than white French often travels. “We have now numerous Akron of us who come as much as Cleveland, and so they’re so excited to see white French on the menu,” he says. “I do not know if anyone else in Cleveland has it.”

As a local Ohioan from one other a part of the state, I would by no means had it till I ordered the signature “overdressed greens,” a pizza parlor–impressed salad, at Cordelia final 12 months. Curious, I known as Cimino lately to be taught extra.

“It is one of the best freaking dressing there’s,” Cimino advised me. He shared the essential constructing blocks: mayonnaise, sugar (typically tons), vinegar (often white), onions, garlic, white pepper, and salt. Assume souped-up buttermilk dressing, or ranch with no herbs and extra sugar. He additionally urged I speak to Ken Stewart, a former boss of his who owns three eponymous eating places in Akron.

Stewart did not create the dressing, however he is performed as a lot as anybody to popularize it over the previous thirty years. After I obtained him on the cellphone, he gave me a quick historical past, as he understood it.

Based on Stewart and many years of newspaper archives, it began with Stouffer’s—kind of. The long-closed Stouffer’s restaurant chain, based in Cleveland and finest identified for the frozen meals it left behind, was the primary to serve a model of white vinaigrette in northeastern Ohio. “It was fabulous,” Stewart says. “No person right here had heard of white French in any other case.”

However the Stouffer’s recipe, which has been printed many instances, will not be Akron-style white French as we all know it in the present day. Like different midcentury vinaigrette recipes, it is a candy French dressing stabilized with cornstarch. It is “white” as a result of it is tomato-free and light-weight on the paprika.

When Stewart purchased Foley’s Restaurant, which then grew to become Ken Stewart’s, in 1990, it got here with a recipe for a brand new sort of white French—possible impressed by Stouffer’s, however with a mayonnaise base. “Harry Foley mentioned, ‘Look, I’ve obtained this fabulous dressing and I will provide the recipe for it,'” Stewart says. “A number of folks have tried to duplicate it since. They’ve come shut, however no cigar. It is a good stability between candy and acidic. And there is onion and a contact of garlic in it. There is a contact of white pepper. There are a pair different little components that I select to not give out.”

Whereas researching the dressing, I got here throughout a four-year-old touch upon a white French recipe from a “Mike Sicilain” who mentioned he was a sous chef at Foley’s. He wrote that Foley’s chef Charles Schaeffer created in the present day’s white French, and that he—Sicilain—took it to Papa Joe’s, one other native establishment identified for its model, when he began working there in 1988. I couldn’t affirm that, nevertheless it aligns with Stewart’s story.

In any case, in case you take a look at newspaper protection, it looks as if Akron’s appreciation for white French actually took off within the Ken Stewart period. By 2003, when then Beacon-Journal meals author Jane Snow got here up with a Ken Stewart’s copycat recipe, it was a beloved style of town, like sauerkraut balls. (Snow’s recipe has grow to be one of many newspaper’s most requested.) “Individuals are loopy about these things,” Snow wrote.

Now, at Cordelia, diners are going loopy for it once more. In fact, Cimino’s white French is not only a copy-and-paste. The chef, a 2025 James Beard finalist and one in every of Meals & Wine’s Finest New Cooks, has his personal take: “It begins with one of the best merchandise accessible to us,” he says. “Once they’re in season, we use sweet onions, that are extra-sweet. In any other case, we use one of the best candy onions we will discover. We use natural garlic from Hudson, Ohio. We use Duke’s mayonnaise, which has a little bit further vinegar brightness. And we use house-made apple cider vinegar, not white. Ours additionally has a little bit little bit of Bertman Ball Park Mustard,” a Cleveland basic.

With some steerage from Cimino, I got here up with my very own model. Like its inspiration, it has a twangy, sweet-tart taste backed by a recent allium punch and heat notes of mustard and white pepper. (One lesson I discovered in testing: Do not skip the in a single day relaxation. These flavors want time to mellow.)

For Akronites, that is an all-purpose dressing. At Cordelia, it is not simply on the home salad—it is also a base for coleslaw and different creamy deli-case “salads.” Cimino additionally recommends folding it right into a Japanese-style potato salad. Stewart says it is a utility participant in his eating places, too: “We have now prospects who use it as a sauce for steak.”