Salads are great for losing weight and eating healthy, but, if you slather your salad with a high-calorie dressing filled with preservatives and chemicals, you basically diminish all of the benefits your getting from it in the first place. The best part about salad dressings are that they are incredibly easy, fast, and inexpensive to make and you won’t have to feel guilty about ruining your healthy meal. I’m going to give you everything you need to build your own salad dressings and then show you some of my favorite recipes you can make as well.
Why Make Your Own Salad Dressing?
Ok, so you may be thinking that salad dressing is cheap, and so much easier to just buy and store. But guess what…you can make your own versions for even cheaper and there are actually a lot of chemicals and preservatives in a lot of store-bought brands that you really don’t want to be feeding your family.
Preservatives
Do you ever wonder why store-bought salad dressings have such a long shelf-life? Or even once they’re opened, they can stay in the fridge for months! It’s because they are often full of preservatives that are sodium-based, making your sodium intake skyrocket. These chemicals push food way past the point of when you should eat it if it were simply fresh.
Added Sugars and Artificial Flavors
Lately, there has been a shift to focus on high fructose corn syrup and it’s negative effects on your health, which is great because it’s terrible for your health and found in tons and tons of store-bought products! Fructose and glucose are two sugars that are naturally bound together and when high fructose corn syrup is produced, these sugars become separated. The fructose then travels straight to your liver and switches it to fat-production mode. Essentially, it alters how your body is supposed to handle these sugars and they are converted to fat instead of energy like your body was designed to do. This also leads to weight gain and the more you eat of it, the worse it is.
Despite containing high fructose corn syrup, most store-bought brands of salad dressing have an extremely high amount of sugar period!
Think About What Kind of Dressing You Want To Make
The kind of dressing you want to make determines what ingredients you will need. For example, if you like creamier dressings, like Ranch or Bleu Cheese, then you need to start with a creamy base, like greek yogurt. However, if you like lighter dressings, like Balsamic or other vinaigrettes, you will use oil and vinegar as your base. Keep in mind that in order to get the consistency and the flavor profile that you want, you may have to mix more than one ingredient to create the base
Here is a full list of bases to start with depending on the type of dressing you want to make:
Creamy Dressings: Ranch, Bleu Cheese, Caesar
Depending on how healthy you want your dressing to be, you can use a variety of bases to create these dressings. A more traditional version would include mayonnaise or sour cream, but a healthier version would use greek yogurt and skim milk. Try this delicious recipe for Healthy Ranch Dressing.
French Dressing:
With French dressing, one of the main components for taste and texture is tomato paste or some type of tomato base, like ketchup. And then all you have to do is add spices. Try this Healthy French Dressing today!
Italian Dressing:
Italian dressing is just as easy, if not easier. All you have to do is add oil and vinegar and a few Italian spices and you have a delicious dressing that can be used as a marinade or to top your favorite salad. This recipe is about as easy as they come.
You can use this list as a reference point to make these common dressings, or as a starting point to make your own. For example, you can make your own version of Ranch dressing by making it spicy ranch, or garlic ranch, etc. You can also create a ton of your own vinaigrettes using different fruits and herbs that pair well together.
Think About What Kind of Salad You Will Be Eating It On
For some, this may not matter, but for others, it could be a very big determination of the kind of salad dressing you want to make. For example, fruity salads pair well with vinaigrettes, while more savory salads pair better with creamy dressings. Lets look at the dressing examples of common dressings and what they pair with well.
Ranch Dressing – Savory salads like cobb salads or chef salads, including ingredients like bacon, ham, hard-boiled egg, and avocado.
French Dressing – This goes great with fruity or savory salads. I like it best mixed with toppings like fresh strawberries and blueberries.
Italian Dressing -Italian is one of the most versatile salad dressings and pairs well with chicken and neural vegetables like carrots and cucumbers. They let the dressing do the talking.
The point of this understanding is that if you have a tendency to prefer a certain kind of salad, like a chefs salad, a caesar salad, or a fruit and nut salad, you don’t want to make a bulk batch of salad dressing that you won’t use or that won’t go well with the food you want to eat it on. Once you’ve decided the kind of salad you want to put the dressing on, consider the way you want to store your dressing.
Think About How You Want to Store Your Salad Dressing
This may seem silly to some, but I’m not a fan of spooning dressing onto my salad. I’d rather squeeze it out of a bottle. Now most salad dressings work in these bottles, but there are other storage methods that don’t keep dressings as well and some containers that don’t serve dressings well.
The biggest hint to how to store your dressing is the consistency. For example, Ranch dressing and other thicker dressings work well to be store in a glass jar and spooned onto your salad. On the other hand, thinner dressings work well in a squeeze bottle. You can easily recycle them from store-bought dressing by washing them out and storing them in the refrigerator.
There You Have It!
Your guide to making your favorite dressings and making a healthier alternative for your family to enjoy. You’ll save time and money making these recipes in bulk, but I would recommend starting with smaller batches to make sure you and your family like them and don’t end up with a ton of dressing that just goes bad because you don’t want to use it. Mix up the recipes and create your own. Let me know what you come up with!