Saturday, January 30, 2010

Soy-free Salad Dressings

Got a question the other day on soy-free salad dressings. Our number one salad dressing here in the Soy-free Kitchen is Good Seasons, made with extra-virgin olive oil and red-wine vinegar. I called the Good Seasons company to make sure there was no soy in the ingredients. It makes a great Cobb Salad (for our Approximate Cobb Salad, see below).

When you buy salad dressing at the store, remember to read every label, every time. We have gotten fond of a certain kind of soy-free dressing, only to find out that they have changed the recipe and used soy oil at a later date. (I used to love Ken's Light Creamy Italian, but it started using soy oil.)

Right now our favorite store-bought dressing is Drew's All-Natural Kalmata Olive and Caper. We buy it at Whole Foods. One of these days I will hunt up a bunch of recipes from the 70's all made with Hellmann's mayonnaise--funky recipes like Green Goddess. You can make them with Hellmann's Canola mayonnaise or other soy-free mayo (we like Hain Safflower Light mayo.)

Approximate Cobb Salad
serves 2

2 cups (packed pretty well) mixed baby greens
1 small tomato, diced
2 strips of bacon, cooked and crumbled
1 hard-boiled egg, diced
2-4 oz cooked chicken, diced
1/2 avocado, diced
2 oz. bleu or roquefort cheese, dice or crumbled
chopped chives or scallions, if you have them

1. Arrange the greens on two large salad plates.
2. Arrange the tomato, bacon, egg, chicken, avocado, and cheese in attractive stripes over the greens.
3. Sprinkle with chives or scallions and then with Good Seasons salad dressing, made with red-wine vinegar and olive oil.

SOY-FREE CONSIDERATIONS:
none

6 comments:

Kat said...

Watch your Mayos some now have soy

goodek said...

All Good seasons mixes have soy in them. Citric acid, natural flavorings, guar gum, all known ingredients including soy.

Kay Hiller said...

That doesn't sound right. I actually called the Good Seasons people and asked if there was any soy in the recipe. They wouldn't give me what *was* in the flavorings, etc (proprietary) but they assured me that there was no soy. I am *very* allergic to soy--no soy oil, no soy lecithin, have had reactions to nonfat pretzels made in a facility that uses soy oil--and Good Seasons has never made me sick.

Jayne said...

If there really was no soy in their ingredients, then they would proudly put on their label "soy free". But they don't. So, what they don't say, says it all.

Unknown said...

Just because they don't "proudly" put it on their label means absolutely nothing. They may simply not be marketing to that particular group. It takes time and an abundance of money to change a label. Just sayin'

Geekmom said...

I question all ingredients now. I just put some bell peppers, garlic, Italian seasoning, onion, red wine vinegar, pepper, and olive oil in a blender then mix it up. Fresh and I know exactly what is in it.