For some reason, people of a certain age love to collect bottles of expired salad dressing. So, about those expiration dates? Do they really mean anything, or are they just part of scheme to get us to buy more salad dressing? The dates are conservative in most cases. Remember that food company want you to have a positive experience, so they may err on the side of good quality, and quality is something you can taste. If you encounter a bottle of expired dressing in your refrigerator, you can use your senses to make sure it doesn’t smell rancid, and toss anything that doesn’t taste like the salad dressing you know and love. Since salad dressings often have a high fat content. Keep in mind that it might not just be a rancid smell, it may have another off-flavor, most often the taste of cardboard. Luckily, when it comes to bacterial growth, formulation is on our side. Most salad dressings are formulated to resist the growth of microorganisms. It’s still best to toss any dressing that looks “fuzzy” — mold formation is definitely a possibility. Unopened, expired bottles may still be okay to consume, but it’s impossible to provide a time frame that would apply to every single brand of dressing. In the end, the best way to tell if it’s safe to use salad dressing is by giving it a sniff and a taste. The process might not be pleasant, but at least you’ll be able to identify the ones that are suffering from “off-flavor."
