Without a single doubt, the health benefits attributed to eating Homemade healthy salad dressing are astonishing.
What makes it even better; they help you lose pounds too. Salad dressing can throw all these benefits to the rubbish pit if not carefully chosen.
A plate of salad with homemade dressing can be 100 times better than salad dressings bought from the store.
Choosing the wrong salad dressing can add a lot of calories, sugars, and saturated fats that will undo the benefits.
With a well prepared homemade healthy salad dressing this can be reverted.
You can make a balsamic vinaigrette, honey mustard, greek yogurt ranch, Italian salad, ginger sesame, zesty Cesar, skinny buffalo ranch dressings at home.
What is the homemade healthy salad dressing?
There’s absolutely no question or doubt surrounding the remarkable health benefits associated with eating salad. What better way to have your salad than with dressing.
However, most dressings from stores and supermarkets have lots of added sugars, artificial flavoring, and preservatives that demean the expected health benefits.
Well, homemade healthy salad dressing is easy to do at your own place of residence at your convenience to enable you to enjoy the salad like never before.
Here are homemade healthy salad dressings that you can make.
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1. Balsamic vinaigrette
This is by far the easiest dressing you can make at home and it works fine for all sorts of salad, putting it above the other options.
We strongly recommend to invest your time and money in this dressing, and trust us when we say –it will be worth every penny and second.
Ingredients;
- Balsamic vinegar
- Dijon mustard
- Garlic
- Olive oil
- Salt
- Pepper
2. Honey Mustard
This particular homemade healthy salad dressing has a distinctive depth in its flavor and taste that it will add to your ordinary salad.
It has a very easy and fast-to-learn recipe that will work well for all salad, dipping chicken, marinating meat, dipping sweet potato fries, and much more.
Ingredients;
- Dijon mustard
- Apple cider vinegar
- Olive oil
- Salt
- Pepper
3. Greek yogurt ranch
Ranch dressing and Balsamic vinaigrette are arguably the most popular ones you will find on the market, and with its versatility and delicious taste, it’s really hard to miss.
This dressing will work best for salad and all sorts of dipping like sauce, pizza, and vegetables.
Ingredients;
- Greek yogurt
- Garlic powder
- Onion Powder
- Dried drill
- Cayenne pepper
- Salt
- Chives
4. Italian salad dressing
If you have not tried this homemade healthy salad dressing, then I’ll definitely not blame you when you make the change to use it, not with its variety of herbs and nice flavor.
This dressing does great for side salad and pasta salad, marinating chicken and fish, and dipping breadsticks.
Ingredients
- Olive oil
- Red or white wine vinegar
- Garlic powder
- Oregano
- Basil
- Onions
- Red pepper
- Salt
- Pepper
- Lemon juice
5. Ginger Sesame
This very simple and easy to make salad dressing works perfectly well as a lump of marinade meat, chicken and vegetables, salad.
Ingredients
- Olive oil
- Sesame oil
- Soy sauce
- Maple syrup
- Rice vinegar
- Garlic
- Minced ginger
Homemade healthy salad dressing under 50 calories
6. Zesty Cesar Dressing
This is very easy to make the dressing. Put together the ingredients in a bowl or dish, stir until smooth, then keep in a refrigerator for a week, then enjoy its beauty.
Ingredients
- Light Mayonnaise
- Lemon Juice
- Water
- Minced Garlic
- Reduced-fat Parmesan cheese
- Worcestershire sauce
- Black pepper
7. Skinny Buffalo Ranch Dressing
This uses a light yogurt base, and a kick of hot sauce that will make everyone at the dinner table love this dressing.
Ingredient
- Ranch Yogurt dressing
- Hot sauce
Why do we use homemade healthy salad dressing?
For all the salad dressing out there, they are basically used for the purpose of flavoring, moisturizing, and enriching the salad to a whole different level.
The taste and health benefits can attest to this. However, when do we stop to think of the reason why we actually use homemade healthy salad dressing, besides the one mentioned.
Most vegetables used in salad are not that bearable in the mouth.
So we coat our vegetables to be more pleasant-tasting to the mouth when eating our salad.
If you still don’t follow this yet, we achieve the aforementioned by using homemade healthy salad dressing.
This will add to health benefits and wins the trouble for you on weight loss.
Why you should make homemade healthy salad dressing?
Photo by Anna Pelzer on Unsplash
You could be thinking the same as I did a while ago.
If you can buy salad dressing from the supermarket, then why bother yourself with making one?
Even so, you don’t want to start climbing a mountain only to realize later on that you are just moving around it in circular form. This is exhausting!
Most of the salad dressing from the supermarket will reverse your weight loss efforts.
Therefore, here are some other reasons why you ought to have the homemade healthy salad dressing
Fine and Fresh Ingredients
With your homemade healthy salad dressing, you get an opportunity to use fresh ingredients. Unlike what you can buy from a supermarket or store. Fresh ingredients are packed with a lot more nutrients.
There are many other benefits attributed to using fresh ingredients while making salad dressings like better flavor.
Real and Right Quantities
A lot can go wrong with other dressing made elsewhere, and you don’t want to take the gamble.
When you set out to have your homemade healthy salad dressing, you get a chance to include the quantity and quality of your preference.
Then all the details to the ingredients are done rightly otherwise, the volumes of the contents –can impact a lot on the general health if done wrongly.
No additives
The best way to avoid additives in your salad dressing is by having it done at home.
Many additives like preservatives, food colorings, and others are added into processed and manufactured salad dressings. Most of them pose harmful components to the body.
The best way to avoid all those additives is by making your own salad dressings.
Can I actually lose weight by eating salad every day?
It’s no secret that eating salad is associated with a couple of health benefits. A whole batch of them, like the reduction of cholesterol levels, improved digestion, and better cardiovascular health.
Additionally, weight control and loss is as well an added benefit on that.
The vegetables in salad have fiber that can keep you satisfied longer and control your appetite. This is one of the weight loss benefits associated with vegetables.
Salad dressing with vegetables are usually low in calories, satisfying, and have fiber in its natural form, weight loss can be achieved.
However, salad dressings alone aren’t a magic pill to achieve weight loss.
Note this, eating salad is just a puzzle piece of good feeding that gets you to weight loss. The main essence of eating for weight loss is eating foods that are low in calories, high in fiber, and low in added sugars.
For weight loss, a good diet and regular exercise will help you achieve sustainable results.
Is it bad to put a dressing on salad as some people say?
Photo by Louis Hansel @shotsoflouis on Unsplash
There’s absolutely no question and doubt a bout the health benefits of salad.
The dressing you choose to use could be the decisive aspect hindering your health benefits.
Most of the dressing bought at the store are loaded with a lot of calories, sodium, sugar, and saturated fat.
This is common with the salad dressings made with soybeans or canola oils –unsaturated fats, cheese, and added sugars.
These salad dressings are loaded with huge quantities of unhealthy ingredients.
Take for example roasted Garlic dressing which has 2.5 grams of saturated fat.
A lot of consumption of these salad dressing will eventually have the calories, added sugars, sodium, and saturated fat accumulating in your body.
This will increase the cholesterol level, weight gain, high blood pressure, and a possible heart attack or stroke
Therefore, with your homemade healthy salad dressing or dressing from the store, take keen interest to ensure the ingredients are not more than;
- Saturated fat 1g
- Sugar 2g
- Sodium 200mg
- Calories 120
With a homemade healthy salad dressing, you are very much free to experiment.
In case you have one ingredient exceeding in its quantities as noted earlier above.
Then you can use 1 tablespoon and mix with red/white wine vinegar to create an equilibrium.
What can I put on my salad instead of dressing?
The main reason for a salad dressing is to improve the flavor of the greens and vegetables which makes it easier to eat together.
While relishing the taste, we add ingredients in the dressing that increase the calorie count, gram mass of sodium, sugar, and saturated fats.
Still, this has a reverse effect on your body’s health other than what you could get from Salad alone.
Therefore, here is the alternative to the dressing that you can use for your homemade healthy salad.
Avocado (Guacamole);
With its touch, the salad will have a different amazing taste having added texture and moisture to the contents.
Avocado is also loaded with many important nutrients essential for a healthy body, clear skin, and many other benefits like seen in this article.
Splash of citrus (a bit of lime or orange)
A simple squeeze of orange, or lemon, on the contents of the salad will give it another life without affecting your calorie count.
Hummus;
This is among dressing for salad with rich nutrients. Tahini, a common ingredient in hummus, yet it’s a paste made from ground sesame seeds.
Boiled Eggs;
When boiled eggs are well chopped and thrown into the salad, they give off an awesome flavor, healthy proteins, and fat.
The yolks will still keep the mixture together.
Liquid Amino;
With a taste similar to soy sauce, liquid amino will give the mixture a great flavor while not adding sugars or calories.
Coconut Oil;
It can be digested easily, has a great flavor and better it can give you instant energy. Coconut oil is a must-try.
Champagne;
A small splash of champagne on your salad will uplift its flavor then make it very amazing to eat.
Vinegar;
One of the most popular salad dressing is vinegar. Try out balsamic vinegar, apple cider, or red wine with probably a small drop of olive oil. The taste of vegetables and vinegar is amazing.
Olive oil;
It is loaded with healthy and better fats yet without sugars.
Try out small olive oil in your salad to improve its flavor.
The bottom line.
With all different types of homemade salad dressings like those discussed in this article, you will have plenty of options to choose from while making homemade salad dressings.
Making homemade salad dressings has proved to have a lot of health benefits.
Now that you have fully read and completed this article, please see our articles on the different types of diets here.
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