salad dressings

Poppyseed Lite dressing is absolutely delicious and it's ONLY 30calories a TBS!!!! I kids log it too. I can grill chicken and they use it as a dipping sauce!

Salads frustrate me because I thought that was the only way to diet for a long time. I do love a good salad, but often the calories aren't worth it because I really only like creamy dressings coating all the salad goodies. Bolthouse dressings have helped because sometimes I do get a hankering for a good salad. For the most part, though, any day I can eat without having to resort to salad is a dieting win, IMO (unless you LOVE salad then eat salad!!).

I've used hummus, thinned out with water, as a dressing for spinach salad with tomatoes and a cut-up veggie burger patty. So good.

Sometimes no dressing. It's one of my pet peeves - how we took good old time vegetables and invented salad, then we took salad and started adding cheese and oil and so much other stuff, we can't find the veg in it.

A bit exaggerated I know, but I just wonder if we haven't long since lost the value of the vegetables.

LovesDogsAndBooks wrote: »

Thanks for both of your suggestions! What fruit would you blend up as dressing, something with a lot of juice like citrus?

I make about 80% of the dressings we use: vinaigrette, creamy and recently catalina-style. I've also done "green goddess" dressings (recipes online). We have substantial salads 5 of 7 days/week. A good number of the days I substitute fresh lemon juice (or occasionally lime or a mix) for the vinegar. I also change up on the vinegars: red wine, apple (clear and cloudy types - mostly clear for salads), white wine or champagne, herb/pepper-flavored. Generally, the lemon/lime juice is also accompanied by some zest to enhance the flavor. Since "mandarin orange slices" are a thing in some salads, I've also been thinking of using an orange juice/zest for the acid ... but am thinking this might be best with ginger, sesame and other asian-type flavors. Now that summer BBQ season is coming around again, there will be some experimenting going on.

I pre-mix vinaigrettes into the salad for serving; my family is evolving towards less dressing overall, so our oil consumption is lessening as well. Creamy and others I let the diner self-serve.

When using lemon, a broad range of herbs are great (dill, basil, ...).

The catalina-style dressing (many recipes online), is tomato-based.

Yogurt, sour cream/creme fraiche and buttermilk blends as a basis make a big range of unique ranch-type and other creamy dressings. I hardly ever use mayo as a dressing component.

Good luck.

I like using coconut amino which has a lot less sodium that soy. I will use that, vinegars, lemon, small amount of olive oil. Sometimes stone ground dijon mustard. Mrs. Dash seasonings, fresh herbs like cilantro, basil, chives, or oregano. Nutritional yeast. You can make some pretty good dressings!

what I do with a really voluminous salad is I spray the thing with Kirkland Cooking OIl Spray (yes, the one you use to fry your eggs or cook your chicken lol) I find I can cover more area without using as much oil as if I was drizzling it from a measuring spoon and then I toss it BEFORE I add the balsamic glaze. I use a glaze because it's more flavorful and goes a lot farther than regular dressings. the spray oil trick makes it distribute pretty evenly and i don't have many nasty dry pieces (if any at all)

brittyn3 wrote: »

Thicker or aged balsamic would be amazing on a salad. A tablespoon is around 10 calories. It's so sweet and rich, it'd be amazing with olive oil, I'd imagine.

Yes! A little goes a long way

AnnPT77 wrote: »

You can make your own yogurt-based dressings, too. Basic idea is plain yogurt + salt + seasonings of choice. What's good? Finely minced garlic; fresh ground pepper; herbs such as oregano, thyme, sage, and/or basil; alternatively to the green herbs, things like turmeric, cumin, or chili powder are also good. Fresh-grated parmesan is excellent in yogurt dressing, but one has to watch the calorie side (but note that there's some protein).

Thin with water or even balsamic vinegar as needed. I don't like to buy dressings, since I like variety, and it takes too long to go through a bottle of commercial dressing. Usually, home-made has fewer calories & better nutrition, too. Vinegar-based or yogurt-based are main choices, but thinned tahini or pureed veggies are also options for a dressing base.

How long do these keep for?