Salad dressings can make your salad much more fun but it can also spice up veggies bowls, Buddha bowls, sandwiches, and more. I have been through many salad dressing recipe fails so far. After long experimenting I would like to share my favorite oil free vegan salad dressing recipes with you. Let me know which one is your favorite in the comments below!

Why oil free dressings?

For many of you this doesn’t make sense. It’s common knowledge that some oils are good for your health while others are not. There are arguments like “oils contain anti-oxidants and healthy fats” that make it seem like oils are a health food.

Some oils can definitely be healthier than using butter and some oils are better than others. Olive oil, for example, is better than palm oil. But coconut oil is just as bad as butter (coconut oil contains more saturated fat than butter!).

The health effects of using oil also depend on frequency of consumption and current health status. For example, someone with heart disease should probably avoid all oils for a while, whereas a healthy person with a healthy diet could enjoy fries fried in oil once a week without the same negative effects.

Oil free for a healthy heart

It’s been proven that meals high in oil (and it did not matter which oil) showed an endothelial impairment just 3 hours after meal consumption.  The Endothelium is the thin membrane that lines the inside of the heart and blood vessels.

In a short term study, olive oil was proven to increase the good cholesterol and lower the bad cholesterol. This study is one of the reasons olive oil is known to be “heart healthy”.

BUT long term studies show that heart disease is best improved lowering total fat altogether (including monounsaturated fat like that which is found in olive oil).

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the US (source). While this study was small, there is evidence that a whole food plant based diet prevents or reverses heart disease. I am not aware of a study that proves the complete reversal of heart disease at this point (only improvement).

Note: whole food plant based is a diet that focuses mostly on whole plant foods and excludes refined foods like sugar and oil.

Dr. Esselstyn placed 200 participants on a whole food plant based diet. Of the individuals that did not stick with the diet (21 people), 62% developed serious health problems including stroke and heart attack. Of the individuals who followed the diet plan (177 people), only 0.6% had the same negative outcome (source).

While the control group is small (only 12 people), the outcome is drastic. In the image above and to the right you can see a patient with coronary artery disease with insufficient blood flow. Following a plant based diet for only 3 weeks with no other intervention, the image above and to the left shows the same patient with completely restored blood flow. Read more in his book: Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease: The Revolutionary, Scientifically Proven, Nutrition-Based Cure.

oil free to increase nutrient density

1 cup mashed avocado contains 348 calories compared to 1 cup of avocado oil which contains 1927 calories. And if you try to use the same amount of calories you get 1 cup mashed avocado for 380 calories and 0.2 cup avocado oil for the same amount of calories. Which one would fill you up more?

Whole plant based foods are always more nutrient dense than refined plant foods like oil. This means there are more nutrients per calorie in whole food compared to plant oils. In the image above you can see you get MUCH MORE nutrition out of 380 calories whole food than with oil. Oils are stripped of most of their nutrients and basically contain only fat.

However, you should still eat healthy plant fats. Whole foods, like the avocado, is not just fat (like the oil) it also contains carbs, proteins, minerals, fiber, and vitamins and, therefore, is a more balanced food source for healthy fats. Avocados are highest in fat but still contain other macro nutrients, while oils ONLY contain one macro (fat).

To learn more about healthy vegan nutrition, check out Plant Powered Health on Amazon>>

oil free to reduce calories

As mentioned above, oils are very high in calories without any real nutritional benefits. Proteins and carbs contain 4 calories per gram and fats contain 9 calories per gram.

I am not saying you should avoid fat! To lose weight you should not follow an extreme diet like high fat or no fat, or whatever is the current trendy thing. It is important to balance your macro nutrients and eat all of them. Some people do better consuming more fat, others do better consuming more carbs, but by all means never cut out one macro nutrient group completely or reduce drastically (like the keto diet).

Here, I am simply stating that you don’t need to eat oils to get your healthy fats.

One tablespoon olive oil contains 119 calories. If you simply switch to water-frying for your lunch and dinner, you can cut out a couple hundred calories per day. Just by cutting back 200 calories per day without any other diet change or exercise you can lose 2-3 pounds per month naturally. And you probably won’t taste much of a difference!

If you stick with whole foods, they contain a combination of fiber, fat, protein, and carbs which all help you stay full longer. This is obviously important when trying to lose weight.