Experiment with Healthy Salad Dressings

Here it is, the season of all things cool and salady. The garden and the produce aisle are loaded with beautifully tempting raw salad vegetables. All of your healthy good intentions can be wiped out by your choice of salad dressing, though.

Oils and fats are a major problem with bottled salad dressings. If you buy dressing, check the label and look for canola or olive oil in the ingredients list. Palm or cottonseed oil in the list? Put it back on the shelf. And whenever you see, "may contain any oils of palm, palm kernel, corn, cottonseed, vegetable oil blend," or any kind of confusing or indefinite ingredients list, you can't know what's really in it. Sugar may also be a main ingredient, and the worst kind will be listed as the ubiquitous high-fructose corn syrup. Salad dressing makers like the consistency it gives their products as well as its sweetness. Check the calorie count and serving size, too. In order to make the calories or fat content appear lower, manufacturers sometimes play around with the serving size to make the numbers look more appealing. And the serving size given may be about right for a small side salad, but if you are eating a large plateful you'll be using more "servings" of dressing.

Other ingredients to watch out for are the preservatives and flavor enhancers. MSG can be found in many bottled dressings. Salad dressing is like any other food item: if the ingredients list includes lots of unpronounceable items, then it's not natural. Why pour it all over your lovely fresh salad?

Before bottled dressings were so common, salads were enjoyed with deliciously simple homemade dressings. Oil and vinegar were and still are popular, and these two ingredients are the base to begin with in making your own dressing. Call it "vinaigrette" and you're doing oil and vinegar in style. The ratio of oil to vinegar is nearly always 1:1. Use olive oil or canola oil for cholesterol control, and try balsamic or herbed vinegars. Experiment by adding some crushed dried or snipped fresh herbs, perhaps some paprika or dry ground mustard, or finely minced garlic or onion, and you will enjoy your creative salads. Some other ingredients you might want to try are honey for a sweet dressing, or lime or lemon juice for a fruity citrus tang.

A true balsamic vinegar is thicker than the typical watery US grocery store vinegar. Balsamic adds a touch of sweetness, too. It is an expensive vinegar, sometimes found in the gourmet section instead of with regular vinegar. For some interesting flavor that won't break the budget, try a red wine vinegar or another variety. Store brands are often surprisingly good, and in the right price range.

Freshly made vinaigrette dressings are bright and tasty. Sometimes the flavors improve if they are made ahead of time and allowed to sit so the flavors can blend. If you make vinaigrette ahead, remember that herbs can become very heady if they are marinated in oil and vinegar for very long, so you may want to reduce the amount you use. This is especially true of fresh herbs.

As long as you are playing with your food here, have the kids participate. It's a good way to promote salad eating, and most kids love to mix up small amounts of experimental foods, adding a pinch of this and a dash of that. Salad dressings are the perfect way to lure a reluctant helper into the kitchen.