You’ve taken the time to make yourself a beautiful, crisp, nutritious and delicious salad. You’ve-

• Included a variety of different coloured vegetables because they all contain different phytochemicals which enhance the vitamins and minerals.
• Added some protein like a hard-boiled egg, chickpeas, fish or some hemp hearts to make sure that your meal contains this important macro-nutrient. Protein keeps you fuller for longer, plus it helps build muscle and is essential to helping your body grow and repair itself.
• Spent a bit more money to buy organic because you wanted to try and increase the vitamin / mineral content and reduce the amount of chemicals you were ingesting.

Good for you. Don’t ruin all of this amazing “healthy habit” effort by dousing your salad with a store bought dressing. With very few exceptions these dressings include high amounts of processed sugar (look for cane sugar,  high fructose corn syrup) the unhealthy types of fat (hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils), chemical additives and preservatives (all the things you can’t pronounce and never heard of). This means that you will be ruining your salad with a lot of ingredients that are anti-nutrients. This of course is ironic, since most of us try and include many vegetables and salads in our diet in an effort to ensure that we are nourishing ourselves well.

It’s so easy to make homemade salad dressings that do not take time and can be made in single serving quantities. Here I am including my top 5 “go-to” salad dressing recipes. Where applicable single serve quantities are in (brackets). Enjoy!

1.   Balsamic Dressing (great for mixed green salads, bean salads, salads with grilled chicken)

6 tbs olive oil (2)

6 tbs balsamic vinegar (2)

3 tbs organic maple syrup (1)

2 tsp Dijon mustard (sulphite free) (1/2)

Place all ingredients in a small bowl and mix well.

Single serving tip  – the above quantities are great for a large salad. You can use what you need and place the rest in the fridge. If I am making it for one serving, the quantities are in (brackets).

2. Lemon Parsley Dressing (great for green salads, salads with tuna, or grilled salmon)

4 tbsp olive oil (1)

4 tbsp juice from a freshly squeezed lemon (1)

4 sprigs of curly parsley (1)

1/8 tsp sea salt (pinch)

1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper (pinch)

Place in a mini prep cuisinart blender and mix.

3.  Shift Tahini Dressing (great with chopped vegetables like tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers or falafel salad)

1/3 cup tahini stirred (1/4)

1/3 cup water (1/4)

¼ cup fresh lemon juice (1/8)

2 garlic cloves (1)

¾ tsp salt (pinch)

¼ tsp sugar (stevia or xylitol) (1/8)

Place in bowl and mix.

4.  Creamy Avocado Dressing (great with green salad, potato salad, topped over freshly grilled veggies like asparagus, etc. )

1 avocado (scooped out of skin)

1/2 cup olive oil

1 tbsp raw honey

1 tsp garlic (1 clove chopped or 1 tsp jarred)

1 lime, freshly squeezed

1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice (1/2 orange)

1/4 tsp sea salt

1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper

5. Apple Cider Vinegar Dressing

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

¼ cup apple cider vinegar

1 tbsp raw honey

¼ tsp cinnamon

1 tsp maple syrup