Ingredients to make Greek salad dressing. Photo credit: Julle Magro (magro-family/Flickr) Homemade vinaigrettes are about as easy as they look: mix oil, vinegar, and spices; shake before pouring. For those who want vinaigrettes without the inelegant step of shaking before serving, the solution is simple; add an emulsifier. Understanding the role of an emulsifier first requires some familiarity with the primary components in vinaigrette, vinegar and oil. Vinegar is composed of acetic acid and water, which are polar compounds. In a polar molecule, one or a group of atoms have a stronger pull on the electrons in the molecule. Due to this uneven share of electrons between the atoms, weak charges form on opposite ends of the molecule . T
he weakly positive and negative charges on the polar molecule are called dipoles. Oil, on the other hand, is a type of lipid, which is a nonpolar compound. Since the atoms within the lipid are largely identical, the electrons are evenly distributed across the lipid molecule [Figure 1b]. Therefore, nonpolar molecules do not have such well-developed dipoles.
