Making your own salad dressing avoids using inflammatory oils

Author: Dr. Michelle Durkin on 12 June 2018

About three years ago I decided I should be making my own salad dressings.

I resisted at first because I thought it would be too time consuming, even though I completely understood the benefit.

Commercially prepared salad dressings contain a substantial amount of sugar and polyunsaturated oils - usually disguised under names such as high fructose corn syrup, glucose-fructose, molasses, modified corn starch, xanthan gum, soybean oil and canola oil. The problem with these ingredients is that they cause inflammation in the body, so I wanted to get away from them as much as possible.

My first step was to switch to olive oil based commercial dressings because I wasn't quite ready to make the commitment to make my own dressings. Then I finally made the jump to home-made.

It turns out making my own salad dressing wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, it didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would, and it tastes 100 times better!

Now that I've done it I wish I had made the switch sooner, but I also realize the importance of breaking down a big change into smaller, easier chunks.

So to make it easier for you I'm sharing my favourite salad dressing that makes all those summer salads taste so yummy!

Balsamic Vinaigrette

Prep time: 10 mins

Total time: 10 mins

Ingredients

3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup red onion, diced
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Instructions

Blend all ingredients except olive oil.
Once smooth, slowly add in olive oil.
Serve atop your choice of salad.

Now I would love to hear from you! What homemade dressings do you really like to make? What is your motivation to make your own versus buy something from the store? Leave a comment below and share this recipe with family and friends. I will be back next week with another edition of Doctor as Teacher Tuesday.