Does eating salad seem like a chore?
If so, then it’s time to mix things up. Swap that tired old dressing that’s been sitting at the back of your fridge for months with an exciting, delicious homemade dressing!
If you’re thinking, “no, eating salads isn’t a chore”, you’ll still benefit from our homemade dressing recipes. How? Because they all include bone-healthy ingredients and are far healthier than the majority of pre-made options.
You see, typical store-bought salad dressings come packed with added sugar, inflammatory oils, and countless other additives that add little to no nutritional benefit.
That’s why we’ve picked some of the AlgaeCal team’s brains to come up with three delicious homemade salad dressing recipes that you can make in minutes. These new twists on old classics are full of healthy, nutritious, and bone-friendly ingredients like tahini, ginger, and olive oil.
We’re big fans of tahini here. It’s a rich source of calcium thanks to the thousands of tiny sesame seeds that go into every jar. And you can use it in so many ways!
Ginger has powerful anti-inflammatory properties to help restore calm and balance in your body. Remember, chronic inflammation stimulates the process of bone resorption.
And olive oil is a wonderful multi-purpose oil that has large amounts of anti-inflammatory oleic acid, and antioxidants. It may even help fight Alzheimer’s Disease too.
Each recipe makes around two servings of dressing and can be easily scaled up or down. If you need help, check out our free printout on scaling recipes. We do all of the tricky math for you.
Any leftover dressing should be refrigerated and used within a day or two to ensure freshness. Watch our video for more salad dressing secrets. Hint: Have you ever heard of massaging your kale?
Vegan Caesar Dressing
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp tamari* reduced sodium
- 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 3-4 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1/2 lemon juice
- 1 tbsp tahini
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
- 1-2 garlic cloves
Instructions
- Put ingredients in a blender and whiz until smooth. Serve over a bed of greens and top with roasted nuts and seeds.
Notes
Nutrition
Japanese Ginger Carrot
Ingredients
- 1 inch ginger peeled and roughly chopped
- 1 small carrot roughly chopped
- 1 tbsp tamari* reduced sodium
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1/4 cup water
- pepper to taste
Instructions
- Put ingredients in a blender and whiz until well combined. Play around with texture and try it smooth or with small chunks of carrot and ginger remaining.
Notes
Nutrition
Seaside Citrus Vinaigrette
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp honey
- 1/2 small orange juiced
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1/2 shallot chopped
- 1 tbsp mustard
- 1/4 cup yogurt plain
- Sea salt to taste
- pepper to taste
Instructions
- Whisk together ingredients in a bowl and serve immediately. If you don't have a whisk handy, you can mix it briskly with a fork or shake the ingredients in a jar until combined.
Notes
Nutrition
*The majority of calories and fat come from the recipe’s olive oil. Approximately 964.4 cal and 110.4g fat are directly attributed to the olive oil content.
Who said salads are boring? Let us know what you think of our homemade dressings in the comments. And feel free to share your own salad dressing recipes too!
Elizabeth Maguire
May 26, 2018 , 6:42 amThese sound yummy! My mouth is watering just reading the recipes! I’ll be putting these to the “taste bud test” as soon as my current dressing is finished. I feel an enormous salad coming on. Thank you.