Whatever Works! Solving the Salad Dressing Dilemma

It seems that we are frequently eating salads for our meals these days.  So I am excited to share with you a little tip that we discovered recently!

Studying labels can be so time consuming, frustrating, and just downright confusing.  When buying bottled salad dressing, this has certainly been the case!  When comparing “light” or “reduced fat’ dressing to the “regular”, often the carbs and sodium are much higher. On top of that, I watch out for MSG and gluten.  So, what to do?

I do sometimes make dressing, but Hubby was actually eating his without dressing until we made this major discovery!  Sorry, but I’m not quite that dedicated.  (I also must give him the credit for making the discovery.)

For our basic salad, we start with a bed of chopped romaine with a little baby spinach.  Next we sprinkle chopped red bell pepper.  They are so flavorful and give some crunch.  A few slices of cucumber are nice.  Sliced or cubed avocado is a must-have! Chopped tomato is good, but with our amazing discovery, not a necessity! 

So, here it is – our amazing discovery!  Instead of salad dressing, use salsa!  YUMMY!  Here is a chart comparing the salsa and a dressing we have in our fridge.

2 T Salsa: 10 Calories 0 gram Fat 240 mg Sodium 2 Carbs

2 T Honey Mustard Dressing: 90 Calories 6 grams Fat 270 mg Sodium 8 Carbs

So it’s easy to see how subbing salsa reduces calories, fat, sodium, and carbs! (I might mention that the numbers on some bottled dressing are much higher than those I used here.)

Here is a picture of my salsa dressed salad.  (I did use about 1 T Blue Cheese dressing along with the 2 T Salsa, just because I like the added creaminess.  Hubby is using only the salsa, with no added dressing.) This is just another example of what is working at our house to keep us on track with eating healthier.  Whatever works!