Salad Dressing

Grrr! It's adding so many calories to my salad. What do you guys use as an alternative?

I try to keep it simple- I use intensely flavored oil-and-vinegar dressings that have lots of garlic and whatnot.  I just use a bit less, toss the salad and dressing in a container with a lid, shake it up so I don't get any "dry spots" - I hate it when I get a forkful of just lettuce!

Also, I use lots of different veggies in the salad- dice up onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, cukes, etc- that helps out the flavor a lot- and the juicy stuff helps "stretch" the dressing.

Can't stand diet dressings- there's a definite chemical taste to them, and there's no telling exactly what those chemicals are.  I much prefer using less of the really good stuff that I can read all the ingredients!

I use Walden Farms too. I love my salads drenched in dressing and these contain only trace calories, plus they have zero fat, sugar, carb, gluten and everything else. I love all there products, especially the peanut butter, jelly, and chocolate and caramel syrups.

Good dressing ideas:

Stretching.  Adding low or non-caloric things to regular dressing, like yogurt or more vinegar

Salsa:  Delicious.  I've mixed a 1/4 cup of salsa with a 1/4 cup of plain yogurt, and gotten a ton of dressing for very few (but tasty) calories

Olive oil vinaigrette:  You'd be surprised how far a tbsp of olive oil goes with 3-4 tbsp of vinegar and some spices.  Yes, it's a lot of calories, but I factor that in (leave out cheese or some other caloric ingredient in favor of the olive oil).  Tasty.

Yogurt:  If you like it, there's all sorts of things you can do to yogurt to make decent creamy salad dressings.  Ranch powder.  Cucumbers and a little bit of sugar (or Splenda, as is my preference).  I dunno, crazy stuff - plain yogurt is a pretty bland base to get started with, and easy to convert into both sweet and savory dressings :)

Balsamic vinegar:  It is tart-sweet, and makes a decent dressing all by itself.

Citrus juice (not from concentrate!):  See above, with more emphasis on sweet :)

Mustard:  Thin it with a bit of water, add a bit of sweetener (or splenda, again), or hot sauce, or wasabi, or whatever you like.  It's another good base that's not especially high in calories (but very tart, so it takes some adjusting to get it to be palatable as a dressing).

Well, I've been making my own dressings for ages - not because I was health-conscious, but because it was cheaper.  Most of the ingredients for dressings you already have (mayo, sour cream, vinegar, mustard, ketchup, and so on), so it was never a question of what to buy.  Now I just make them with healthier ingredients, but same result:  Still cheaper :P

(Orange-mustard dressing with a touch of sesame oil and wasabi?  I think it can be done...)

 EDIT:  Also, they make these dressing spray-things.  I've never tried them, but I've heard they're pungent and good, with very little calories because it's really a fine mist rather than slopping on actual dressing

i like to use salsa and/or lowfat cottage cheese to mix into my salad

 

the salad spritzers are also really good

 

lastly- sometimes i will use just like a teaspoon of really yummy full fat dressing and then put my salad in a sealed container and shake vigorously.  it distributes the dressing onto every bit of salad and tastes just as good!! (you can also try dipping your fork lightly into dressing before eating your salad and you tend to use less)

 

 

i go through about a billion spinich salads a week so i usualy just wip up a honey lime vinagrette or a dijon maple one and just keep it in a little shaker in the fridge. still a bit of calories but i dont use much and at the verry least i know whats in it ... no creepy chemicals