Ohio has given the national food scene iconic regional dishes from cinnamon-spiked Cincinnati chili to peanut butter Buckeyes. Today, we’re taking a look at a less widely known Midwest classic that’s anything but forgotten by foodies in the Toledo area. When Northwestern Ohioans are whipping up a bowl of salad, Betty’s Salad and dressing is the vintage favorite that remains relevant half a century later.
The real Betty was Betty Timko, a Toledo and Southern Michigan restaurateur credited with both the salad and the dressing’s invention. Today, the Haskins, Ohio-based Timko Enterprises manufactures and sells jars of Betty’s iconic salad dressing, labelled with a photo of Timko herself. The jarred dressing is also sold in select grocery retailers across Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Michigan.
While Betty’s Dressing can be applied to any fresh salad, it’s designed for one salad arrangement in particular: the eponymous Betty’s Salad. Betty’s Salad comprises a base of fresh head lettuce, spinach, and romaine, and it’s loaded with bacon crumbles, chopped boiled eggs, and crunchy bean sprouts. If using canned bean sprouts, they should be drained. Some preparations also add water chestnuts for extra crunch. The dressing bears a vibrant red-orange hue, not unlike French dressing, but with a significantly thicker texture and a distinctive taste. Copycat recipes seem to agree that the dressing includes some combination of vegetable oil, sugar, salt, vinegar, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, finely diced sweet onion, and perhaps a proprietary seasoning blend.
Betty’s Salad and dressing bring savory bacon, egg, vinegar, and Worcestershire to the table
If a bacon- and egg-loaded salad sounds fairly retro, that’s because it is. Betty’s Salad exudes the ’80s vibe shared by other imaginative dishes of the decade, like strawberry risotto. Timko Enterprises, Inc. has been producing the dressing since 1982 (and remains a third generation family-owned business today), but Betty first invented her iconic salad and dressing back in the 1960s.
Timko’s personal food service industry career began in the 1950s, when she worked in the kitchen of Islay Dairy Store in Tiffin, Ohio, expanding to catering at homes and churches shortly thereafter. Then, in 1962, she invented her iconic Betty’s Salad while working as the Club Manager at Highland Meadows Golf Club in Sylvania, Ohio. Timko even published recipes in her local newspaper, the Toledo Blade, during the 1980s. As her career grew, Betty brought her namesake salad to multiple Holiday Inn locations while working as its food and beverage director. Her dressing also breached supermarket shelves, increasing the scope of its reach. Her Toledo restaurant, Timko’s Soup & Such, shut down shortly after her passing, but her jarred dressing lives on in regional supermarket aisles.
For maximum Ohioan epicureanism, Betty’s Salad makes the perfect meal starter before a fried Lake Erie perch dinner with a slice of Amish Country shoofly pie for dessert. The official Betty’s Dressing site also recommends using the condiment to coat chilled pasta salads, glaze meatloaf, marinate chicken, or as a dipping sauce for meatballs, shrimp, and crudité vegetables.
