I use the spray on salad dressing. It gives me just a hint of flavor without the fat or calories. Yes, I know that they're probably filled with chemicals and all kinds of bad things but I've all but given up sweets and a girl has to have something!
I used to use salad dressing, but I don't bother anymore.
My salad today consisted of romaine and spinach, grape tomatoes, red and green bell peppers, diced honeycrisp apple, mandarin oranges, strawberries, cucumbers, sunflower seeds, red grapes, and black olives. It was delicious and no need to mess up all those good flavors with salad dressing. I would rather use those calories on something else. YMMV.
it sounds like you would prefer making a warm salad. you could saute some garlic with greens as a side dish for dinner. and the more beans the better. my family likes black eye peas sauted with garlic and olive oil(reg. oil or chicken broth would sub) with collard greens and turkey sausage.
you could build up some recipes in the meantime. then when you go grocery shopping, and farmers market if you can, you have a game plan.
lots of veggies are delicious roasted. winter squashes and many other produce are in season and on sale now. cabbage lasts a long time, it's one of the cheapest veggies.
i often don't use dressing for a salad. i use honey mustard often. i haven't been eating salads often lately. i use the lettuce/steamed spinach in wraps, sandwhiches. or make soup with greens in it.
Just discovered rice wine vinegar by happy accident this weekend. Also new love of napa cabbage. I was burned out on romaine.
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Originally Posted by kaplods
Rice wine vinegar is my secret weapon. It's much milder than regular vinegar, so you can add a lot less oil (or even no oil). It's also a great way to dilute regular dressings. I pour one tablespoon of full-fat dressing in a little tupperware container and add one to two tablespoons of rice wine vinegar, snap the lid and shake it to mix the dressing/vinegar. This works really well with very thick dressings, because it thinks it enough to coat the salad more easily.
I would love to un-boring up my salad, and my food in general, but I just don't have the money. We already did our shopping for the next few weeks (a week or two ago.) We just don't have the money. I HATE lettuce, I would much rather romain or SPINACH, believe me. I wanted to add in chicken, but we didn't have any (another thing we're out of).
So this is a sort of have-to-do for now for me. Kinda sucks but not THAT bad.
I do 1 tbsp of dressing but I put it in the bottom of my plate and sort of toss as I eat. There is always some left over.
I totally agree about different vinegars. If I remember correctly right now I've got apple cider, rice wine, balsamic, red wine, white wine and pomegranate red wine vinegars in my cupboard. Toss some garlic and whatever dried herbs you like in a few tbslp of vinegar and a tbslp of oil and let them mellow together. If you have balsamic put a half cup of it on the stove over low heat and stir it every now and then until it becomes thick and sticky... so good! That's also awesome on stone fruit.
As for budget "luxury" add-ons, I hit my local Big Lots/Odd Lots, the oddball grocery discount, Marshalls, TJ Maxx and Ross. They all have food sections of things that were maybe a little too exotic or were holiday over buys and you can often get something that was originally $6-$8 for a dollar or two. Just watch your sodium levels on them!
Check for a restaurant supply place nearby (Grocery Outlet, GFC) for cheaper lettuce/spinach options too. I got a huge (the size of two large shoeboxes) tub of spinach last week for $5. Luckily you can freeze it so it won't go to waste! You can also pick up good deals on proteins if you watch their ads.
If you have a sunny spot in your house, think about growing your own greens, mesclun, etc. as an edible house plant. I kept two bowls of mesclun going last winter when things got really tight for about $5 in seeds and it really livened up my plain old lettuce.
It doesn't help you right now, but with planning, it will definitely liven up your next month and the month after.
I don't use dressing. It really sucked making the transition to no dressing at first but now dressing just doesn't sound particularly appealing. If I must flavor my salad aside from the ingredients I will squeeze a lemon over it and add a little pepper. Very yummy and very little calories.
The most important thing I found was to top my salad. Me and my sister like to eat a salad that consists of 1.5 cups romaine lettuce .5 cups spinach, half a beet raw/steamed, half an artichoke (steamed), tomatoes, cucumber, and half a grilled chicken breast. extremely tasty and fits easily into practically any meal plan as long as you don't add dressing.
A little of the juice from olives works well. Or pickles if you like those better. Or just plain vinegar. garlic salt is good too for flavor.
I buy herb mix which is like a salad mix that has cilantro and parsley and stuff mixed in. It gives it a lot more flavor. If I don't put things like boca chicken, beans, a bit of cheese, than i do add dressing. I just measure out a tablespoon or two and it's fine.
I don't think a few tablespoons of dressing will hurt, as long as you count it out and aren't getting 500 calories of dressing or something. After all, lettuce hardly has any calories, so if this is your dinner you want to have some substance to it! Just make sure you balance that with any meat, eggs, cheese, nuts, olives, crutons or other higher calorie/fat options that are also going into the salad.
I either dip my fork in dressing or I use salsa. Occasionally, I'll use apple cider vinegar....it's really good if you take some coleslaw (or broccoli coleslaw).....mix in some apple cider vinegar and close it up in the refrigerator and leave it for two days. Then, it has a sort of pickled flavor and there's no need for salt, pepper or anything...unless you prefer. Apple cider vinegar is supposed to be very healthy so this is a great salad but I usually forget to make it!
I make my own herb vinegars (fill jar with fresh herbs, cover with vinegar, white or cider, and let steep for a month or so. Shake jar every now and then. Strain, bottle and enjoy.) Right now I have basil vinegar and rosemary-infused olive oil that I'm using together in a vinaigrette with some crushed garlic. Great on either cold salads or cooked greens.
I use the fork method also. I just learned about this recently. I measure out 2 Tbs. of lowfat hidden valley ranch and put it on the side. It has such a strong flavor that a little on the fork goes a long way.
I have no clue how you people eat salad without any dressing! Power to you! I do the whole-measure-it-out and shake-it-up-to-cover-it-all technique. Love it. But when I want to switch up my salads (standard lettuce, broccoli, and cauliflower...I'm not too adventurous with my salads) the go to ingredient is HUMMUS!
Home-made hummus rocks. If you have a food processor, you're all set. Canned chick peas (watch for sodium levels) are very cheap, a drizzle of olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, garlic, salt and pepper, and then whatever other flavor you want to throw in. I'll throw in my hummus either a small can of black olives, or black beans, roasted red peppers, dill, etc. The possibilities are endless. I try not to put too much olive oil in my hummus, I usually reserve some of the extra liquid from the chick peas to help the smoothing out process.
Fork dipper here. Lettuce without dressing, I just can't do it. Mixing it up with different veggies, fruit, nuts and strong flavored cheese and adding a little oil and vinaigrette however is a whole other 'nother ballpark.
I love my salads, but I'm another who just needs to have some dressing on it. If you like ranch (which I do!), try Kraft Light Ranch. It is the only light ranch dressing I even remotely like, the other ones are disgusting to me. But that one is really, really good.
Occasionally I will replace my dressing with a serving of hummus if I have it -- good suggestion from another poster!
