Clean Eating Vinaigrette

I hate buying vinaigrette at the store for two reasons:

1. It’s so much cheaper and very easy to make at home.
2. Manufacturer’s add so much “yuck” to the bottle instead of leaving it fresh and natural the way it should be. (Shelf life is a bad thing!)

I recently purchased the fabulous book Cooking by James Peterson. In it, he discusses how to make a quick and perfect vinaigrette.

Now, I’m all for adding healthy oils to your salad via a wonderful vinaigrette, but his recipe was a 3:1 ratio. In other words, 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar.

While I love this book and will use it a lot in the coming years, that ratio was a bit high for my clean eating tastes. So I experimented. Here are some tips I learned about making a really tasty vinaigrette.

• If you can’t afford the expensive balsamic vinegar, buy the cheap stuff and boil it down by half. (soft boil) So for this recipe, I started with 1 cup of balsamic vinegar, and boiled it down to the 1/2 cup called for in the recipe.
• Don’t use olive oil. It doesn’t taste very good with the mustard. I used canola oil, but you can also use grape seed oil.
• You don’t have to use copious amounts of oil to get the needed effect in your salad. A little oil goes a long way. I used 1/4 cup for this recipe, but my guess is you could get away with using 1/8 cup and still get the same effect with half the fat. Experiment and see what tastes good to you. Just shake your dressing well before applying.

I have a nice big batch of this in my fridge. It’s so tasty! And the best part is, I get it all to myself because my Honey hates vinegar!

So let’s get to the recipe. Shall we?

Clean Eating Vinaigrette
(Makes 3/4 cups)

Ingredients
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar (see above notes)
1/4 cup canola oil
2 tsp. prepared Dijon mustard
2 tsp. dried Italian spice
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Step 1 – While your vinegar is boiling, place all other ingredients into a bowl that has a lid. Whisk and let stand.

Step 2 – When vinegar is finished, add to the container, place lid on container and shake well to mix.

Now wasn’t that easy?

Eat and Enjoy!

Munchkin Helpers:

If you have little ones, here’s how they can help (With close supervision, of course).

My little guy was sleeping when I made this, but if he had been there, I would have had him pour the vinegar into the cold pot, add all the other ingredients to the mixing bowl and help me stir those ingredients. Once I added the vinegar and the lid was on tight, I would have had him shake the bowl until he could shake no more. Kids love that stuff!

Nutritional Content
1 serving = 1 tbsp.

Calories: 50
Total Fat: 5 gm
Saturated Fats: 0 gm
Trans Fats: 0 gm
Cholesterol: 0 gm
Sodium: 12 mg
Carbohydrates: 2 gm
Dietary fiber: 0 gm
Sugars: 2 gm
Protein: 0 gm
Estimated Glycemic Load: 1

Nutritional Information estimated at Nutritiondata.com. Data may not be accurate.

Caution: Any time a child is in the kitchen, they will require close supervision. Munchkin Helpers suggestions should be applied with common sense to your own child, taking their own capabilities into account. Do not assume that because it says here that your child can do something, that they can, in fact do it. Please use common sense when in the kitchen with your child(ren).

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