Naturally Healthy Salad Dressing

Author: Traute Klein, biogardener
Published on: Mar 27, 2001

Salads can be healthy and interesting. A different dressing can be whipped up fresh daily. Lettuce is not needed either. Various ingredients are waiting to be discovered.

My Favorite Pot Luck Dish

Salads are my specialty. They are everyone's favorite at pot lucks, and all my friends pick them out at a glance. Not only are they decorated with edible flowers, they contain unusual ingredients such as tasty common weeds. In the summer, these ingredients vary with the season, because my garden does not grow the traditional salad ingredients. I depend on Nature to provide from her own bounty. My article, "Weed Salads from My Garden" tells how you can find some of these ingredients. It is linked below. In our house, fresh salads are served once or twice daily, and no two are ever the same. I don't have a recipe but use whatever is available. In the summer, I just step outside to pick a basket full of whatever strikes my fancy. In the winter, I buy whatever is priced most reasonably that day. If necessary, I supplement it with frozen or canned produce. What really sets my salads apart, though, is the dressing.

My Best Salad Dressing

I like variety and mix fresh dressings differently for every salad just like I mix my herb teas differently for each potful. Basically, my dressings are made up of two main ingredients, fruit juice and olive oil. Various other ingredients are added to that base to enhance the flavor and to heighten the health benefits.

The Juice Ingredient

Whenever I am using fruit juice for drinking, I dilute it either with filtered water or with herb tea, but before I dilute it, I take off enough of it for the day's salad dressing. If I am opening a can of frozen concentrated juice, no matter what flavor, I will add some of it to the dressing in its concentrated form. The taste will be scrumptious! For a creamy dressing, I substitute yogurt for the fruit juice or a combination of the two.

The Oil Ingredient

Extra virgin olive oil is the best oil anyone can buy. It not only is needed by the body to function properly, the oil actually helps to lower bad cholesterol. Whoever said that oil and water do not mix had no acquaintance with olive oil. It is the only oil which I know to mix with a water-based liquid. When you whip both together or shake them in the bottle, the mixture actually thickens. The reason for using oil in salad dressing is to allow it to cling to the salad ingredients, keeping them from going limp from the liquid ingredients.

The Medicinal Ingredients

My secret medicinal ingredient is a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar. If taken with a meal, this vinegar will prevent food poisoning even if harmfull bacteria are ingested. I add it to salads and juices as a preventive measure. At the same time, this vinegar will help in the digestion of proteins and carbohydrates. It also normalizes body pH, thus preventing fungus infections. I like my food hot and include something hot in every salad. Cayenne and its prepared derivative, Tabasco Sauce, are my favorites. Their health benefits are well known. They speed up the metabolism, clean out blood vessels, lower cholesterol, and clear the breathing organs of congestion. I add this ingredient to individual portion, i.e. last, to accommodate the different tastes of the people for whom I prepare the salad. Chopped raw garlic has similar medicinal properties to cayenne, and in addition, it normalizes high blood pressure. I leave this ingredient out for the people who need to meet with people that day who do not eat garlic. Poor people indeed! Another medicinal ingredient is ginger, and I love to chop some root into salads finely. It is the best home remedy for nausea and congestion. Don't ever try dried ginger. It is less than useless and tastes terrible. I have heard that the brown skin of ginger root is poisonous, but I have never bothered to peel the root. If anyone has information of this, I would appreciate hearing about it. I have certainly never noticed any adverse effects to the skin, and I use plenty of ginger daily.

The Herbal Ingredients

I only use dried herbs when fresh ones are not available. In the summer, I pick whichever herbs are plentiful at the time. If they are available in abundance, I will make a whole salad with them, using nothing but herbs as the fresh produce. BTW, the easiest way to cut herbs is with scissors. About 30 years ago, I watched the owner of a Greek restaurant in Toronto prepare a Greek parsley salad. It only had three ingredients, chopped parsley, olive oil, and lemon juice. I have been eating parsley salad ever since as well as dill salad, basil salad, oregano salad, peppermint salad, borage salad. Or I will make a combination of any of those herbs. Invention and imagination are the key to good health.

The Edible Decorations

More flowers are edible than you might think. Be inventive. Taste them. Just make sure that you learn to recognize the poisonous ones. All the rest are there for you to experiment with. Wild animals have an instinctive knowledge of what is poisonous. The more sensitive humans do as well. If you know the most poisonous plants, you can experiment with the rest by just taking a little nibble to begin with and watching possible reactions.

Here are some flowers to avoid:

• lily-of-the-valley is poisonous
• lilies, some are poisonous
• daffodils are said to be poisonous
• tulips may not be poisonous but I got a severely sore throat from eating a tulip seed pod
• nightshade plant flowers, including tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, tomatillos, deadly nightshade

Here are some well-known edible flowers:

• roses
• violets and their relatives, pansies
• nasturtium
• lilac
• caragana
• mock orange
• the petals of any fruit tree, most of them are members of the rose family
• calendula, called pot marigold in England, has a rather harsh taste and needs to be used in moderation
• the flowers of any herbs, it you pick the flowers off, the herbs will grow fuller and more fragrant

Not enough?

If my salad bowl is not yet overflowing, I will go out to the garden for some weeds or to the pantry for some canned veggies. Lettuce? Ah, who needs it?

Recap

• In a large salad bowl mix olive oil, juice and/or yogurt, and apple cider vinegar.
• Whip with a fork.
• Add chopped garlic and ginger. Omit the garlic if you need to go to a party or meeting.
• Whip again.
• Add herbs, cutting them with scissors.
• Add whatever you can find in your garden, at the market, or in your pantry.
• Toss lightly.
• Take out the portions for the people who do not want hot ingredients.
• Add cayenne or hot sauce to taste.
• Toss lightly again.
• Decorate with edible flowers in contrasting colors. Never use black or white pepper, because they damage the liver.

Salad yes! Lettuce no!

If you knew what happens to iceberg lettuce before it gets to the supermarket, you would regard it as compost material at best. It has no nutritive properties to make up for its deficiencies.