Dress up ugly produce with Bolthouse Farms dressings

Ugly produce deserves a front row seat on your dinner table. With Bolthouse Farms dressings, those less than picture perfect veggies get star billing.

Sometimes the best tasting produce isn’t the prettiest food on the shelf. Ugly produce can be more flavorful than those picture perfect vegetables. Just like the old Ugly Duckling story, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, great tasting food doesn’t have to be Instagram perfect. In many ways, ugly is the new food trend.

Bolthouse Farms dressing understands that not all produce comes out of the ground looking like a highly stylized photo. Just because a tomato isn’t perfectly round or a carrot is slightly misshaped, that produce should not be thrown in the bin. With a little creativity, that produce can have its moment in the sun.

Looking at food trends, ugly produce is starting to have its day. Whether it is the delicious heirloom tomatoes with the gradient colors and ridges, unusual shaped fruits like Buddha’s Hand or just produce with a blemish, these foods are often bursting with flavor. Once people move beyond the outward appearance and actually taste the foods, they realize what they have been missing.

A quick survey of the produce aisle can be a journey of discovery. Who was the person who originally thought that a jackfruit would be a great plant-based substitute? Or, looks at Kohlrabi and experimented with it both raw and cooked? It took a willingness to look beyond the “ugly.”

Even more importantly today, food waste is a growing problem. While many people are understanding the importance of root to stem cooking and minimizing waste, some people still have an aversion to imperfect food. It is time to push that notion to the rubbish bin.

Bolthouse Dressings, photo provided by Bolthouse Dressings

Bolthouse Farms wants people to learn to embrace the ugly. As the “Official Dresser of Ugly Foods,” the brand shows that flavor, (substance not visuals), should be the focus of the food on the table.

When shopping for produce, it’s only natural to pick up what looks the best. This summer Bolthouse Farms dressing is looking to change this habit.

Just in time for National Salad Month, Bolthouse Farms is showing consumers that everything can taste pretty in the right setting. In a way, these misfit morsels are becoming the new normal. Whether blended into a juice, pulsed into a soup or diced into a salad, once these ingredients are transformed, those imperfections are a distant memory. The only thing remaining is a delicious dish.

Recently, Bolthouse Farms partnered with Lo Bosworth. The writer of The Lo Down and International Culinary Center graduate has create innovative and delicious recipes that don’t require picture perfect produce.

She said, “At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if your peppers are misshapen or if your cucumbers are slightly bruised; slice them up, throw them in a bowl with some greens and their classic Ranch dressing, and you’re good to go!”

With that concept in mind, Bosworth shared the following recipe, Boathouse ugly veggies.

Like many families, my refrigerator can become the place where veggies seem to become buried behind in the drawer. In my quest to reduce food waste, I have taken to creating some pre-measured salads and veggies in stacked containers. This option allows the kids to grab and go easily.

With the prep done, everyone can grab a container and a bottle of their favorite dressing. There is no excuse not to eat their veggies plus that salad bag doesn’t go from grocery store to garbage bin.

While my kids usually crave Ranch dressing, I have found that the Bolthouse Farms creamy cilantro avocado is a delicious alternative. The yogurt dressing has a hint of spice from the poblano pepper but it isn’t overpowering.

The flavor adds just the right boost to a traditional garden salad, a dip for crudité or even as a ranch alternative on potatoes. With all this flavor, it didn’t matter if my carrots had a divot or my cucumber wasn’t perfectly round.

Are you ready to embrace ugly produce? Sometimes the most flavorful dishes start in the most humble beginnings.