For many individuals, no salad is complete without a dash of their favorite dressing, which brings the flavors of the dish together and adds that additional zing you crave. Whether you prefer Italian or balsamic dressings, you can almost certainly prepare a homemade version with a few extra benefits.
Why create your own salad dressing when every store has an entire aisle of them in all flavors and varieties? Here’s why:
1. It’s fresh.
You can be sure your salad dressing is fresh when you make it yourself. They’ve been sitting in their bottles for months in the supermarket. Furthermore, store-bought salad dressings are loaded with preservatives in order to keep them fresh for months.
2. No Sugar Added.
One of the most common places where food makers hide added sugar and other sweeteners is in bottled salad dressings. In fact, a few tablespoons of salad dressing can contain many teaspoons of sugar. You’ve probably heard that refined sugar can cause a variety of health issues, including diabetes and obesity. Making your own salad dressing allows you to maintain a healthy weight and improve your overall health by controlling the sugar content of the condiment.
3. It is less expensive.
Consider the cost of the processed foods you buy if you’re looking for a solution to cut down on your grocery costs and other expenses. This list should definitely include salad dressing, and creating your own salad dressing is a fantastic way to save money. You may easily create twice or even four times as much for the price of one bottle of dressing, which will make you want to start a backyard garden. Making your own dressing may take a little longer at initially, but it will save you money in the long run.
4. Homemade food is better.
You can use that exquisite boutique extra virgin olive oil you bought from local olive farmers at the Farmers’ Markets, as well as your own pot produced chives and home grown lemons.
You don’t know what kind of oil was used in a store-bought dressing, and many of them rely on flavor enhancers to make something that doesn’t taste like much taste good.
5. No Oils That Have Been Refined.
When you look at the ingredient list of most standard salad dressings, you’ll see that soybean, canola, or another type of vegetable oil is listed first. Refined oils are cheap and easy to make, but they’re harmful for your health. These artificial oils are laden with free radicals, which can cause DNA damage and premature aging, thanks to the high temperatures employed to generate them. Even organic salad dressings contain refined oils, according to my observations. Olive oil, sesame oil, and avocado oil are all excellent refined oil substitutes. Make your own salad dressing with them next time!
6. The options are limitless.
If you’re tired of the same old ranch, Italian, and Caesar dressings, try one of the many homemade varieties. From avocado citrus dressing to mango cilantro vinaigrette, there are a plethora of recipes available online. When it comes to homemade dressings, the sky’s the limit, so give your taste senses something to get excited about.
7. Most brands of salad dressing have too much sodium.
A cursory glance at the nutrition panel of most store-bought salad dressings reveals that they are high in sodium. Watch out for “light” dressings, which claim to be low-calorie and low-fat but compensate for the flavor loss with sugar and sodium, which are added to conceal the lack of freshness by improving flavor, texture, or palatability and extending shelf life. In fact, a two-tablespoon serving of most dressings contains 300 to 500 mg sodium; and let’s be honest, who stops at two tablespoons? (source) Why is this such a horrible idea? Excess salt consumption has been associated to hypertension, heart disease, stroke, and kidney disease.
8. Most creamy salad dressings have dairy products that are bad for you.
If you like ranch, Caesar, blue cheese, and other creamy salad dressings, you’re probably ingesting components that came from antibiotic-treated animals or animals that were given hormones and/or growth promoters. This is because many animals are given low dosages of antibiotics throughout their lives to help them develop faster and avoid infections. The problem is that these non-essential medications induce antibiotic resistance in people, putting human health at risk. Similarly, the additional hormones present in conventional dairy (which includes mayonnaise, milk, cream, butter, buttermilk, and so on) may raise the risk of breast, prostate, and colorectal cancer in humans, as well as lead to greater infection rates in animals.
9. It Has a Better Taste.
I’ve tried a lot of store-bought salad dressings, and none of them compare to the flavor of homemade dressing. Even if you already have a favorite store-bought dressing, I recommend giving preparing one from scratch a try to see the difference. Making your own vinaigrette allows you to play around with the recipe and tweak it to your liking.
The greatest of all worlds is fresh, homemade dressing.
10. It’s a cooking activity that kids will enjoy.
Making a nutritious homemade salad dressing involves very little cooking equipment and preparation time, making it an ideal project for tiny kitchen assistants.
Children can assist in measuring dressing components, tasting for the optimal ingredient ratios, and whisking or shaking ingredients together in a covered jar.
11. Makes use of any leftover herbs.
Whether you have a few fresh herbs left over from a dish or a large supply of herbs from your garden that you’re not sure what to do with, making your own salad dressing can help you use them up and reduce food waste.
In conclusion
Salad dressings are easy to make at home, and I feel that learning how to make your favorite dressing and nutritious drinks at home is a useful skill to have. It will save you a lot of money.
You also have full control over what goes into the dish. Have you ever gone down the salad dressing aisle and looked at the ingredient list? Many of them have artificial colors and flavors that are simply unnecessary.
And my favorite thing is that you can absolutely personalize the flavor. You’ll always have that recipe in your pocket if you’ve found your “house dressing” that’s perfect for your family’s taste buds.