Dorothy Lynch Dressing: The Midwest's Best-Kept Secret

If you've never heard of Dorothy Lynch Salad Dressing, you're probably not from Nebraska — and that's exactly the point. I am from Ohio, we have T. Marzetti here or Pine Club dressing, but Dorothy Lynch? I had never heard of her. I had heard of Dorothy and Toto from neighboring Kansas, but not Dorothy Lynch from Nebraska.

This reddish-orange, sweet-and-spicy condiment (kinda reminds me of Russian dressing at least based on looks) is one of the great regional food finds of the American Midwest. And yet, step outside of Nebraska, Iowa, or a handful of surrounding states, and people look at you blankly when you mention it Like me.

The reason Dorothy Lynch is on my mind at all is because I was recently pawing through old pages of the old, old, old Amish Cook website (pre-2012) and recently found a reader from Missouri referencing this dressing.

"I always remember my grandma having Dorothy Lynch dressing on hand. I really liked it, and it was especially good in taco salads. Seeing it on the store shelf the other day reminded me of her, who passed away almost 3 years ago. I had to buy a bottle, but opted for the fat free variety, which isn't as rich but still tastes good. I really think that Dorothy Lynch Dressing is the ONLY item in the supermarket that has 'tomato soup' as its #1 ingredient! I found that very hard to believe when I first saw that."

That reader was onto something — and she's absolutely right about that ingredient list.

The Real Dorothy Lynch

From my research, I found that before her salad dressing became a Nebraskan icon, Dorothy Peterson was a schoolteacher with no intention of starting a food empire. Born in Cushing, Nebraska, in 1913 to Danish immigrants, she married Arthur Lynch of Plattsmouth in 1934. Nearly two decades later, while the couple was running the American Legion Club in St. Paul, Nebraska, Dorothy created something that would outlast them both.

Unlike most French dressings, hers was tomato-based instead of oil-based, with a sweet and spicy flavor and a creamy texture. She began placing it on tables in the restaurant, where customers quickly chose it over store-bought alternatives — and many even brought their own bottles and jars from home to be filled. Now, did she just get a can of Campbell's tomato soup to add to this dressing? Did she add a soup can full of water also? Questions, questions....

As the popularity of her homemade dressing grew, she decided to commercialize her creation. The family soon began producing it in bulk — first at the Legion Club, then in their basement. In 1964, the family sold the recipe to Gordon "Mac" Hull, a recent law school graduate who saw its potential. In exchange for the use of the Dorothy Lynch name, the family received a 1 percent royalty on sales for the next 50 years. Following the acquisition, Mac formed Tasty Toppings in Columbus, Nebraska, to expand production. There is really no Amish connection here, but The Amish Cook column did run in the Columbus Telegram newspaper for a number of years, so there is that.

Dorothy Lynch passed away in 1975. Today, Mac's daughter serves as CEO of Tasty Toppings, and twenty-two employees continue producing hundreds of thousands of bottles of Dorothy Lynch each year.

So What's Actually in It?

Here's where it gets interesting — and our reader was correct. The very first ingredient listed is tomato soup: water, tomato paste, modified cornstarch, distilled white vinegar, salt, rice flour, sodium benzoate, citric acid, and onion powder. After that comes sugar, soybean oil, vinegar, salt, spices, xanthan gum, and potassium sorbate. It is almost certainly the only salad dressing on any supermarket shelf anywhere in America where canned tomato soup is the foundation. That quirky base is what gives Dorothy Lynch its distinctive thick, tangy, slightly sweet slant that no one can quite replicate at home, BUT you can come close with the recipe the reader shared.

A Midwest Institution

Dorothy Lynch is still made and bottled in Nebraska — specifically in Duncan, Nebraska, population 351 — and shipped to customers and grocery retailers around the country. It contains no MSG, no cholesterol, and no trans fats, and it is gluten free. Each bottle is dated with a nine-month shelf life, making it one of the freshest bottled dressings available. SIGH, expiration dates don't keep from having 5-year-old bottles of salad dressing stuffed in my fridge.

It comes in two varieties today: the original Home Style and the Light & Lean (which is what the company renamed the old "Fat Free" version the reader mentioned).

Beyond salads, Dorothy Lynch is used as a sauce for wings, a dipping sauce for burgers and sandwiches, a marinade, and even stirred into soups. But ask any Nebraskan of a certain generation and they'll tell you the same thing our reader did: taco salads. The church potluck taco salad, to be specific. The kind in the big Tupperware bowl.

For those of us who grew up in the broader Midwest — Ohio, Indiana, Iowa — Dorothy Lynch may have made it to your grandma's refrigerator door, or it may have stayed just west of you. Either way, it's worth hunting down. You can order it online if your local store doesn't carry it.

Some flavors taste like a place. Dorothy Lynch tastes like Nebraska. Now, let's take a look at that copycat recipe for the dressing that the reader shared.