Are you looking for some simple, easy to make, oil free salad dressings? If you are, then you’re in the right place!
In this weeks post, I run you through the My 6 Favourite All Time Easy Oil Free Salad Dressings that I make on a regular basis, especially in the summer months.
All these salad dressings use regular ingredients such as lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, apple cider vinegar, herbs, spices, mustards and different kinds of fruit.
Why oil free you may ask, as a Food for Life instructor (you can find out more info here about Food For Life Instructors), we suggest that for optimal nutrition you should avoid meat, dairy products, eggs, added oils, and high fat foods.
Here’s a great article that explains, ‘While oils have a place in our lives in terms of medicines and beauty products, they really have NO place in our diets.’
As Professor T. Colin Campbell says in his book Whole, Rethinking the Science of Nutrition, the ideal human diet should:
“…. avoid heavily processed foods and animal products. Stay away from added salt, oil, and sugar.”
As Dr Caldwell Esselstyn says in Dr Barnard’s 21 Day Weight Loss Kickstart book:
“I encourage people to just throw their oils away. You don’t need to cook with it. You don’t need to dribble it on your salad, and you’re better of without it. I never use oil in anything. Not a drop.”
Dr Barnard goes onto say:
“Now if that sounds like tough love, you should know that there are still traces of healthy fats in vegetables, fruits, and beans, so you’ll get all that your body needs.
When you follow Dr. Esselstyn’s advice, what you’ll miss is virtually all the ‘bad’ fat and a boatload of calories.”
Here are my My 6 Favourite All Time Easy Oil Free Salad Dressings for you to try. Remember to let me know how you get on making them.
If you’re making a salad to take to work, or for a picnic, put your dressing in a screw top bottle you can then drizzle your dressing over your salad just before you eat it. This will stop your salad becoming limp and sodden.
Lemon, Ginger and Maple Syrup Salad Dressing
3 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tbsp freshly grated ginger
1 tbsp maple syrup
If you don’t like too much ginger you can swap the maple syrup and ginger quantities around.
Method
Mix all the ingredients together and drizzle your the salad.
Honey Mustard Dressing
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon course grain mustard
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon heather honey
If you don’t want to use the honey, substitute with maple syrup or agave syrup.
Method
Mix all the ingredients together and drizzle over your salad.
Plain and Simple Lemon
This has to be my all time favourite. I know it’s super simple, but for me, it adds just enough flavour to bring out the natural tastes of each of the salad ingredients.
I use a whole lemon and roll it under the palm of my hand on my kitchen work surface for a few minutes, this releases more juice from the lemon. I then puncture it with a sharp knife and drizzle what I need over my salad.
You can then store your lemon in the fridge to use later, or you can squeeze the rest of it into ice cube trays and freeze them to use later.
I also use lemon juice in this way on my greens such as cabbage, broccoli, kale and spinach. This is especially good if you find some veg a bit bitter as it neutralizes the bitterness. It also enhances the beneficial phytonutrient concentration.
Lemon juice, like many other fruit and veg, contains flavonoid compounds that have antioxidant properties. They’re also an excellent source of vitamin c that travels through our bodies neutralising any free radicals that it comes into contact with. These free radicals can interact with our healthy cells and damage them, causing inflammation.
Lemon Juice and Crushed Garlic
1 fresh lemon, squeezed to extract its juice
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed then finely chopped
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
Method
Combine all the ingredients in a small bowl with a fork and leave to stand for about half an hour, more if you want to. Then drizzle over your salad.
Balsamic Dressings
Try adding your choice of frozen fruit to your balsamic vinegar. Put them all in a blender and whizz up. I like to use raspberries and strawberries mixed with balsamic vinegar. It tastes yummy!
You can also add your own fresh herbs such as rosemary and thyme to the vinegar as well as spices such as crushed dried chillies.
Seasoned rice vinegar is also good drizzled over your salad.
Fruity Dressing
125 ml chopped, fresh pineapple
125 ml chopped, fresh mangoes
125 ml freshly squeezed orange juice
60ml rice vinegar
1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
Method
Put all the ingredients in blender and whizz together until smooth. Drizzle over your salad as desired.
Missing Ingredients? You’ll love these quick and simple alternatives…
If you don’t have any of the above ingredients to hand, a simple way to create a salad dressing is to use whatever salsa or houmous/hummus you have to hand.
Just mix them with a little water or lemon juice to free up the consistency and make them runnier. You can also use plant-based milk such as almond or brown rice milk to achieve your desired consistency.
You can also use fresh lime juice, prepared in the same way as the lemon juice above. Add your choice of hot sauce such as Tabasco or Adobo sauce and mix up. For an extra kick, add a pinch of dried chilli flakes ground between your fingertips to the juice.
To finish up…
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