I can’t believe I haven’t shared this dressing with you all yet! It has become a staple of mine and I love using it when preparing a salad, or as a dip for steamed broccoli and cauliflower.

I believe a good dressing has the power to turn the most basic and boring salad into something utterly delicious.

And when you do use a delicious dressing, chances are you will not only eat more vegetables, but enjoy eating them too! J

Unfortunately store-bought dressings or even restaurant dressings are not the healthiest options for us. Bottled dressings are often rich sources of saturated fat, calories, sodium and added sugar. So you might be eating salad for good health, but by covering it with store-bought or some restaurant dressings, you might be undoing the benefits of eating that same salad.

So what to do instead?

If you are in a restaurant, it is wiser to order a salad with dressing on the side, or better yet, ask them to bring you some extra virgin olive oil and vinegar/lemon and make your own dressing. This way you will be aware of what goes in the dressing, and the oil quality will be better (because unfortunately not all restaurants use extra virgin olive oil in their dressings!).

And if you’re at home, make sure you ditch all store-bought dressings from your fridge. You don’t need them. You can simply whip up a delicious and healthy dressing yourself in a matter of seconds.

Like the one I’m about to share here today.

This dressing is oil free, simply because it does not need any added oil. The pumpkin seed butter provides a healthy, wholefood source of fat. But wait, there is more! Did you know that pumpkin seeds are a great source of minerals, such as manganese, magnesium and yes, iron!

Just 28 grams of pumpkin seeds contain*:

• 1,7g fiber
• 7g protein
• 18% of the RDI for vitamin K
• 42% of the RDI for manganese
• 37% of the RDI for magnesium
• 23% of the RDI for iron
• 14% of the RDI for zinc

Have I convinced you to start including them regularly in your diet? If you struggle to eat pumpkin seeds (which are great to sprinkle on salads too) another way is to use pumpkin seed butter.

I have discovered this pumpkin seed butter, made out of 100% pumpkin seeds, about two years ago and love it!

You can also make this salad dressing with tahini if you don’t have pumpkin seed butter; it is just as delicious!

Nutritious, oil-free Pumpkin Seed Dressing

• Time: 5min
• Difficulty: easy
• Print

Ingredients

• 2 tsp pumpkin seed butter (or tahini)
• 1 tsp mustard (or 1/2 if you don’t like the strong flavour of mustard)
• 1 tsp nutritional yeast
• juice of 1/2 lemon (or 1 tsp raw apple cider vinegar)
• 1 1/2 tsp raw honey (or another sweetener)
• sea salt to taste
• some water (about 1-2 tbsp) to dilute the dressing and make it creamy

Directions

1. Place all ingredients in a small bowl and whisk them together until they reach a creamy consistency.
2. Adjust the flavour if you like and pour the dressing over the salad and mix well.

Sources:

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/11-benefits-of-pumpkin-seeds#section1