Salad dressings are so flavorful and fun, and salad is one of the healthiest meals you can eat. What could go wrong, right? People turn to salads to lose weight, get some greens into their diet, eat healthy or to feel good.
However, many of the popular salad dressings – often to make salad taste better – contain a high amount of calories and fat. If you’re going to eat a salad, you might as well know what you’re putting on it. Here are some popular salad dressings that will probably make you rethink that caesar salad appetizer:
7. Caesar Salad
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Caesar salad dressing is not the greatest choice. Although it is a classic appetizer choice, it can rack up more calories than an actual meal. It has 158 calories and 16 grams of fat in only 2 tablespoons. If you can’t help but order this salad, just remember that a little goes a long way.
6. Oil & Vinegar
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This dressing is the worst one to use if you’re watching your waistline. In just 2 tablespoons, it has 144 calories and 16 grams of fat. Even though oil is considered a good fat, I would recommend swapping this dressing for plain old vinegar.
5. Blue Cheese
Photo by Katie Walsh
Bleue cheese salad is also not healthy even though blue cheese is known for its health benefits. Blue cheese salad dressing has 140 calories and 14 grams of fat in only two tablespoons. To avoid piling on the calories, crumble a couple chunks of blue cheese on your salad instead to still get the flavor.
4. Italian
Photo by Katie Walsh
Italian salad dressing is a choice that is a little lighter in calories. It has 130 calories and 13 grams of fat. Still, I would recommend some lemon and honey to get that sweet flavor without the calories.
3. Honey Mustard
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Honey mustard is another creamy salad dressing that will not make your salad any healthier. It has 130 calories and 11 grams of fat in 2 tablespoons. One good alternative is hummus to still get that creamy texture.
2. Balsamic Vinaigrette
Photo by Abbie Ginis
Balsamic Vinaigrette is also not the greatest choice. The “vinaigrette” has 120 calories and 12 grams of fat in only 2 tablespoons. To still get the flavor of balsamic, I would swap out the vinaigrette for balsamic vinegar, which adds a zest and tang instead of cream and fat.
1. Thousand Island
Photo by Katie Walsh
This dressing has 118 calories and 11.2 grams of fat. Instead, you could use Greek Yogurt to slash the calories and still get that creamy flavor.
Some healthy salad dressings with little to no calories include: squeezing a lemon, dripping honey to get that sweetness, apple cider vinegar, balsamic or wine vinegar. But if you really can’t give up your caesar salad, you can choose dressings that are “lite” or “low-fat” and still enjoy your salad.