by Andrew Palmer

Created on: November 22, 2008   Last Updated: May 16, 2011

The point of eating a salad is to enjoy a combination of delightful vegetables and reap its nutritious benefits. Vegetables are full of essential vitamins and nutrients so it's important to include them in your diet. It's general knowledge that you shouldn't eat a lot before bedtime to keep weight down. A great way to avoid bingeing before bedtime is eat a salad. You will go to bed feeling full and your body will be happy, which constitutes better rest. However, must of us drench our salads in fatty, creamy salty salad dressings. The best way to enjoy a salad from a health perspective would be with no dressing or a drizzling of sesame or olive oil. Your typical salad dressing is full of stuff that actually keeps your body from absorbing all that it can from the vegetables, not to mention high in fat and sodium. So if you absolutely must have something extra with your salad here are a few easy to make, low fat, healthful dressings that should tickle your taste buds just right. Each of these is for one serving.

Holiday Citrine - In a bowl squeeze the juice of two clementines or any other seasonal citrus fruit. Add one tsp. each of salt, dill weed and black pepper and/or lemon pepper. Add two tsps of parsley. Add three drops of balsamic vinegar. Add one TBSP of extra virgin olive oil and mix it all together. Voila!

Sweet Sesame Lemon Pepper - In a bowl squeeze the juice of one lemon and half an orange. Add one tsp each of agave nectar or honey, salt, black pepper and/or lemon pepper. Add sesame oil to the mixture slowly until desired consistency is attained.

Dill Vinaigrette - red wine vinegar to 1 tsp each of salt, garlic powder, mustard powder, 2 tsps of dill weed and a pinch of sugar. Mix!

Agave Garlic Vinaigrette - 1 tbsp of vegetable oil, 2 tsps of apple cider vinegar. Add 3 tsps of agave nectar or honey. Mince 1 clove of garlic. Put it all together, mix and there you have it!

Roasted Red Vinaigrette - buy yourself a handy jar of roasted red peppers. Pull from the jar one of those peppers and slice and dice it all up into smaller pieces. In a bowl 1 tsp of balsamic vinegar, 3 tsps of olive oil, a little bit of the oil from the roasted red pepper jar. Add one tsp each of salt, pepper and parsley. Add 1 clove of minced garlic. Mix it all together. Enjoy!

Sweet Ginger Lime - In a bowl squeeze the juice of one small lime. Add 3 tsps of olive oil, 1 tsp of rice wine vinegar and agave nectar or honey. 2 tsps of minced ginger root, 1 clove of minced garlic a splash of soy sauce. Mix and enjoy.

These are just a few possible combinations. It's really easy to create your own dressings. All you have to do is know what you want, get a little creative and be willing to experiment. Also, don't forget that a simple mixture of olive oil and vinegar can be great and good for you too!

Happy eating!

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