What brands and varieties of salad dressings do you love? What do you look for in a dressing? Do you stick with common supermarket brands, or do you search out premium specialty foods to dress your salad?


I love, love, love a good salad, and am always looking for something new.

You are gonna get mad at me, but I'll tell you anyway. Trader Joe's has several really yummy ones - a ranch one and a blue cheese one that are divine. I still like Hidden Valley Ranch a lot. I've also started making my own with olive or canola oils, different vinegars and spices or different mustards. Nice thing about making your own is that you aren't locked into a whole bottle of just one flavor. I want to get some other oils to play with too, like walnut oils.. etc.

I look for low calorie, no/low saturated fat and no transfats and it cannot taste like caca!!

I prefer my own homemade vinaigrette on salad these days: equal parts balsamic vinegar and lemon juice then about 1/2 a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil. Tangy and sweet.

If I have to buy one from the supermarket and I try not to because to be honest I would much prefer the full-fat-bad-for-you-chunky-blue-cheese kind , I buy Wishbone Light Just 2 Good Thousand Island. It tastes almost as good as the real thing and doesn't have that nasty, acrid aftertaste that some light dressings have. Walmart has it.

Annie's Naturals brand. Lowfat Raspberry and Lowfat Gingerly
These dressings have high quality natural ingredients and are delicious.

yes, the caca taste really turns me off too........

OK, I like/crave something *tangy*......rice vinegar, low sodium soy mixed together with some lemon juice.

Newman's light Sun-dried tomato cut the calories with lemon juice.

I cut plain dried tomatoes into the dressings too.

Powdered Hidden Valley with nonfat sour cream, great with cucumbers, veggies (its more like dip, but you can probably thin it to a dressing too)

I very rarely use oil, just a tsp. of olive here and there.

I really like Kraft's Light Done Right Raspberry Vinaigrette. A little goes a long way and it has a good balance of sweet and tangy.

I'm super picky...I don't like vinegarettes or anything oily or too runny. I also don't really like veggies, so when I make a salad, I know I use more than 1 serving of dressing because that's the flavro I actually like.

Anyway, I've been doing fat-free ranch dressing mixed with barbecue sauce--very yummy, no fat, and not too bad on other "bad stuff" depending on the type of barbecue sauce you use (I check labels for things like "all natural" ingredients, no HFCS, and preferably also no Splenda, as it has been leaving an icky aftertaste for me lately).

I used to ONLY eat thousand island or French dressing, but then I discovered honey mustard dressing, which is pretty much impossible to make both yummy and healthy

Renee's Pear Guave Dressing is REALLY good! A nice change. I enjoy mostly all of Renee's dressings.

I love fruity dressings and another fave of mine is President's Choice Mango Dressing. It's fabulous! Great on baby greens.

And there are days when all I want on my greens is a bit of fresh lemon juice and a sprinkling of salt.

I'm going to try something new. I just ordered some Z Trim and am going to use it in a package of dry Hidden Valley Ranch. I'll let you know what the outcome is.

I really like the fattening ones, blue cheese and ranch but since those are a bit too rich calorically I generally either eat no salad dressing or I eat salsa as my salad dressing.

I use the full fat ones, either a ranch or blue cheese. At home, I usually take a T. of dressing and mix in either a T. of salsa or taco sauce, to stretch the amount of dressing for fewer calories. While dining out, I always order Blue cheese on the side and dip my fork in.

I use either fresh lemon juice or a drop of balsamic vinegar - both virtually no calories.

I also like to add foods to my salad, which gives them plenty of flavor. Like grilled chicken. Or I make a baby spinach/red leaf lettuce salad with sliced strawberries and cubed mango and a few slivered almonds.

Since my salad dressing is counted as part of my fat allowance for the day, I make my own, fresh for each salad. I use 2 tsp. of different kinds of oil, like sesame or walnut, but usually flax oil since I like the nutty flavor and it's monounsaturated and high in omega 3. I whisk that with the juice of 3 wedges of lemon and a good dijon mustard. I don't use any prepared dressings.

I make my own - a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil & balsamic vinegar, a crack or two of peppercorns, and spoonful of whole grain mustard. Classic and somewhat versatile (if I have leftover herbs I can toss some in.)

I generally like mixing my dressing at the bottom of my salad bowl before piling the greens on top, that way I know how much dressing (and calories) I'll be tossing into the salad (I'm a bit too clumsy for the dressing-dipping method.)

I make my own, too, with a little water, a little extra virgin olive oil, miso paste, black pepper, and hot chili powder. It's really good! Without the water, it's also an excellent marinade.