Vegan Salad Dressings 101: Make Your Next Salad an Explosion of Flavours

Eating a well-balanced meal is key to staying healthy and in good shape, and increasing your energy levels on a daily basis. And a great part of this low-carb and well-balanced food should consist of salads which in most cases are considered as a side dish. But the truth is that salads can provide you with the needed dose of daily protein and grains (and some more benefits), and vegetables precisely can improve your mental and physical health. But aside from the salad itself, you shouldn’t forget to pay attention to the dressing as well.

What’s So Important about Salad Dressings?

Adding dressings to your salad is important because they increase the absorption of nutrients like lycopene (a plant nutrient that has antioxidant properties) and alpha/beta carotene (precursors of vitamin A). But you can obtain all of these only by choosing the right dressings.

And while readymade dressings are quite a popular choice these days because they make prepping salads easy and tasty, not all of them are healthy. Most of them are full of calories, preservatives, sugar and fat, which doesn’t make them healthy at all. Speaking of fat, it’s essential for helping the body absorb the aforementioned nutrients. However, not all types of fat are healthy, especially not the ones in ready-made unhealthy dressings since they usually contain trans fats.

The best thing you can do to reap the benefits of your salad is by choosing vegan dressing. A vegan salad dressing is the perfect explosion of flavours that is quick and easy to use without compromising your health. It usually contains healthy fats like monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) and polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs). MUFAs can be mainly found in olives, peanut oil, canola, avocados, and most nuts, and PUFAs can be found in plant-based oils like soybean, sunflower, corn, sesame, and cottonseed oils.

When in the search for the right vegan healthy salad dressing to give your meals a boost, make sure to follow the rule of “less is more”. Look for a dressing with fewer ingredients, and make sure the first three on the ingredient list are water, oil, and vinegar. Spices and other healthy ingredients are also crucial since they can give the salad an exquisite flavour and taste.

What Can I Substitute for Salad Dressing?

In those times when you don’t have a ready-made healthy dressing at home, you can always add a bit of olive oil, lemon, and salt. And to spice things up, you can add a bit of hummus, avocado and a splash of orange juice.

The Most Popular Types of Vegan Salad Dressing

Undivided Food Co Good Oil Asian Dressing

If you love trying new tastes, then you would probably love this heavenly tasty Asian dressing. Thanks to its range of ingredients, this organic salad dressing will add a totally new taste to your salads, and it’s completely Keto friendly. It contains no artificial sweeteners, refined sugar, artificial flavours, additives, and gluten.

Instead, it consists of extra virgin olive oil and rice wine vinegar as the base of the dressing, which is accompanied by apple cider vinegar, garlic, sesame seeds, coconut aminos, ginger, chilli, monk fruit as a sweetener and sea salt. Just give it a little shake before use and dress your salad as you wish!

Celebrate Health Creamy Caesar Keto Dressing

If you love Caesar salad but want to make your own low-carb one at home, then you should certainly invest in this go-to and easy-to-use healthy and creamy Caesar keto vegan salad dressing that’s low-carb salad. It’s made from apple cider vinegar, avocado oil, olive oil, water, milk cheese, lemon juice, mustard, pepper, garlic, and Himalayan salt – everything you need for having a good dressing.

Instead of wasting your time and making the exact same sauce at home, now you have a readymade one, which tastes heavenly good. Have no fear, this Australian-made product has no seeds oils, artificial colours, and flavours, and it’s completely free from sugar and gluten.

Annie’s Balsamic Vinaigrette

This is a full-fat healthy dressing with fat coming from a healthy source like organic canola oil. This bold and tangy dressing has balsamic vinegar and honey as a sweetener which makes it a bomb. Aside from salads, you can put it on everything you want, including mac & cheese, cereals, snacks, and tortillas.

Newman’s Own Low-Fat Sesame Ginger Dressing

This is another Asian-style spicy dressing that can give your salads a whole new taste. It features sesame oil, ginger, distilled vinegar, water, soy sauce, canola oil, pineapple juice, lemon juice, sea salt and crushed red chilli pepper to help you add a change to your regular and basic salad dressing.

All of these dressings can be used on salads, steamed veggies, marinated fish, snacks or simply on any food combo you find appealing. You can find all of them and many others at any trusted and reputable store for healthy food.