Friday, February 18, 2011

Clean Eating Swap Outs : Salad Dressing

I continue to struggle to find an acceptable Clean salad dressing. Here's a recipe that may be as close as you can get to a traditional bottled ranch dressing. A good Clean Eating salad dressing is good to find!

Traditional ranch dressing is full of weird ingredients like xanthan gum (which keeps the dressing thick yet pourable), disodium phosphate, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate, MSG (a flavor enhancer), and calcium disodium EDTA (a preservative).



The homemade version, courtesy of Ellie Krieger's site, Healthy Living With Ellie


2 tbs has only 50 calories instead of the 150 in the bottled dressing - and the sodium level is 70 mg, instead of over 250 mg for the bottled.

Ingredients:


  • 1/2 cup plain nonfat yogurt or
    1/3 cup plain Greek-style nonfat yogurt
  • 1/3 cup lowfat buttermilk
  • 3 tbsp mayonnaise
  • 1 1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice
  • 1 tsp Dijon mustard
  • 1/2 tsp onion powder
  • 1/4 tsp garlic powder
  • 1 tbs finely chopped fresh chives
  • salt to taste

Steps:
If using regular yogurt, place it in a strainer lined with a paper towel and set the strainer over a bowl. Let the yogurt drain and thicken for 20 minutes. In a medium bowl, whisk together the strained or Greek-style yogurt with the remaining ingredients.