Low calorie balsamic dressing

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wm3796
wm3796 Posts: 70 Member
in Food and Nutrition
What are favorite low calorie balsamic dressings… either recipes or store bought?

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  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 13,243 Member
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    Most basic is mixing extra virgin olive oil with good balsamic vinegar and some herbs. Boom. Done.

    For commercial, I like Annie's Shiitake Vinaigrette. To make it lower calorie, I only use one half of a "serving" when I make a salad. I toss all the greens by hand to get them coated before adding other veggies. Works for me.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,166 Member
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    Even more basic: Often I just use aged balsamic vinegar (or more rarely flavored balsamic), and add fats (for tastiness, fat-soluble vitamin absorption) by sprinkling on some pumpkin seeds or something like that.

    I never buy bottled salad dressing. For me, having to use up a whole bottle of exactly the same dressing is an exercise in mealtime boredom. (I live alone, so the bottle is all me. :| ).

    I don't have formal recipes for dressings, but will do vinegar based or nonfat Greek yogurt based dressing. I use many different kinds of vinegar, since the flavors differ: Balsamic, white balsamic, red wine, champagne, sherry, brown rice . . . and more. Add-ins can be spices, herbs, some hot sauce, prepared mustard, some kinds of cheese, fruit juice, salt or soy sauce, . . . .

    Since I just make enough dressing for one meal, it's fun to experiment with the dressings. Even if I don't hit it out of the park, the worst that can happen is a less-tasty salad one time. Even that can be avoided by mixing up the dressing on the side, and tasting it before putting on the salad.
  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 13,243 Member
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    Even simpler... perhaps:

    Maldon salt and a squeeze of lemon.

    @AnnPT77 - I pretty much only buy one kind of commercial dressing. I really like it a lot. I have a bottle in the pantry as a back-up to the one in the fridge that I opened last week, so I bought a second back-up today when I saw it was on sale. It's really good.

    My family used to have a "recipe" that my uncle made up. I probably have a 3x5 card somewhere with "Uncle Jerry's Dressing" on it. Pretty basic oil and vinegar with herbs and spices.
  • acpgee
    acpgee Posts: 7,623 Member
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    A classic vinaigrette is 3 parts oil to 1 part lemon or vinegar. If you are looking to cut down on oil calories, one part nut oil (hazelnut, walnut, or sesame) one part balsamic and one part soy is tasty.

    No fat yoghurt is a good way to stretch dressing recipes that use mayo.

    Google nuoc cham (Vietnamese salad dressing) that uses no oil at all but does contain quite a bit of sugar. Google Japanese white dressings for recipes that use blitzed tofu for a creamy texture.
  • ericanahnahnah
    ericanahnahnah Posts: 3 Member
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    In a pinch i get the Olive ranch baslamic vinegarette. But like others mention making your own is easy and tasty. I add a teaspoon or 2 of any kind of mustard to emulsify the vinegarette I make. If I want a creamier based dressing I add a little mayo (low fat works well).
  • nicsflyingcircus
    nicsflyingcircus Posts: 2,409 Member
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    Newman's Own light balsamic.
  • FibroHiker
    FibroHiker Posts: 342 Member
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    Ken's Lite Balsamic vinaigrette is a favorite for me.
  • MaggieGirl135
    MaggieGirl135 Posts: 977 Member
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    Skinny Girl. Tasty and 5 calories for 2T

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