Three sugar-free salad dressings

Three parts olive oil, one part apple cider vinegar, salt to taste. That’s it.

This is the default dressing, and it is enough for most days. It keeps in a sealed jar in the refrigerator for a week and should be shaken before use.

As a guide: 10-20 g of added oil per day. One and a half tablespoons of the prepared dressing is approximately that amount.

Three parts olive oil, one part apple cider vinegar, one teaspoon mustard, salt.

Mustard acts as an emulsifier: the dressing stops separating and becomes thicker. The taste changes noticeably, while the ingredients barely do.

Important condition: use sugar-free mustard. Read the ingredients — most ready-made mustards contain sugar, sometimes among the first three ingredients.

Three parts olive oil, the juice of half a lemon, one garlic clove pressed through a garlic press, salt, black pepper.

This dressing goes best with fish and salads with avocado. Garlic releases more flavor after a day in the refrigerator, so it is convenient to make this dressing in advance.

It keeps for less time than the others — three to four days, because of the fresh garlic.

Because sugar in them is the rule, not the exception.

Salad dressings, ketchup, marinades and BBQ sauces are on the short list of products in which hidden sugar is found most often. It is listed as glucose syrup, dextrose, invert sugar, fruit juice concentrate or honey.

The second reason is the oil. In cheap ready-made sauces, it is usually refined vegetable oil, and that is what you pour over your salad every day.

With gastritis with high acidity, reflux and peptic ulcer disease, vinegar and lemon juice in large amounts may be poorly tolerated — in these cases, make the dressing milder or discuss it with a doctor.

With high blood pressure and heart or kidney disease, it is worth monitoring the total amount of salt: 3-5 g per day is a guideline for a healthy adult, and the dressing counts toward that total.

In a glass jar with a tight lid, in the refrigerator. Plastic absorbs odors, and the taste of garlic lingers in it for a long time.

The basic and mustard dressings keep for a week; the lemon-garlic dressing keeps for three to four days because of the fresh garlic. Shake the jar before each use: oil and vinegar separate, and that is normal — the basic dressing has no emulsifier.

It is convenient to make enough for a week at once: 150 ml oil, 50 ml vinegar, salt. This makes approximately seven to eight salad dressings.

One and a half tablespoons for a large bowl of salad. Converted to pure oil, this is the same 10-20 g of added oil per day used as the guideline.

The most common mistake is pouring from the bottle by eye. This uses two to three times more, and those are precisely the unnoticed hundreds of kilocalories that keep weight from changing despite following the plan.

A simple approach: pour the dressing with a spoon from the jar, rather than pouring from the bottle over the plate.

With three variables: acid, fat and an addition.

Change the acid — apple cider vinegar, lemon or sugar-free balsamic vinegar. Change the fat too — olive oil, a little cream in the mustard dressing or mashed avocado. The addition can be dried herbs, black pepper, paprika or grated cheese.

One substitution changes the taste completely while barely changing the ingredients. This is cheaper than looking for new recipes every week.

What we do not add: honey for balance, balsamic glaze (it is made with sugar) or ready-made mustard with sugar among the first three ingredients.