Your diet should consist mostly of things without labels, like fruits and veggies, and beans and grains from bins. If you read the labels on every food product before buying it, you will probably change your buying habits. This in turn will lead to better health. Salad dressings are no exception.

Even natural salad dressings with organic ingredients often contain sugar. Other more affordable dressings have flavor enhancers and refined oils. To have control over ingredients and to save money, you get to make your own.

Great summer mixed salad greens are available in bulk or bags. Sometimes they are called mesclun, from the French mescal , for mixed. These greens are beautiful and delicious and so nutritious. They are also convenient. The cost per pound can seem high, but remember that there is no waste and, if you buy in bulk, you need buy only what you can eat.  I eat a salad based on mesclun every day in summer. I dress it with a few splashes of extra virgin olive oil and/or walnut oil, some balsamic vinegar and some Ume plum vinegar. I don’t premix this dressing.

If you have old salad dressing bottles, preferably glass, save them for storing your homemade versions.

In winter, when I eat heartier salads with a Napa cabbage base, I dress my salads with one of the following:

• Garlic Ginger Dressing

I adapted this dressing from a 1990 newsletter. It was called Cancer Prevention Salad. The salad had shredded cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, bell peppers, radishes, and green onions. I make a variation of this with winter veggies and Napa cabbage. I toss enough together for a few days.

The dressing:

2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger or ½ teaspoon powdered ginger

2 cloves garlic, smashed

¼ to ½ teaspoons red pepper seed

½ cup unpasteurized apple cider vinegar, preferably raw

2 tablespoons soy sauce or Bragg’s liquid aminos

2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil or extra virgin olive oil

Place all ingredients in a glass jar or bottle with a tight lid and shake well.

This dressing will need to be shaken well before each use.

• Elephant Garlic Dressing

Elephant garlic is huge, as its name implies, and is much milder than its smaller cousins.

This is especially good on cooked greens some of which can be bitter. This delightful creamy dressing reduces the bitterness.

1 clove elephant garlic, coarsely chopped

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice or bottled 100% pure juice

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

¼ teaspoon salt

1.       Place the garlic and lemon juice in a blender, blend until mixed.

2.       Add the olive oil and salt.

3.       Blend till smooth.

Keep refrigerated.  Olive oil gets solid when cold so remove from refrigerator ½ hour before you plan to eat it.

• Moroccan Vinaigrette (adapted from recipes from an ecological kitchen by Lorna Sass)

This is a great all around dressing for tossed salads, it is also good over a quick lentil salad made with cooked lentils, thinly sliced celery, and finely sliced sweet onion.

Combine all of the following in a glass jar with a tight lid and shake well:

2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons lemon juice, fresh or bottled 100% pure juice

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1 ½ teaspoons sweet paprika, ground

1 teaspoons cumin, ground

1 small clove garlic, smashed (optional) smashed

1 teaspoon unrefined sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

¼ tsp to  ½ teaspoon of your favorite hot sauce, optional

Store in the refrigerator and shake well before each use.

• Tofu “Ranch” Dressing

Combine in a blender or food processor, mix until smooth.

4 – 6 ounces soft silken tofu

2 tablespoons lemon juice, fresh or  bottled 100% pure

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1/2 teaspoon unrefined sea salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper, freshly ground

1 tablespoon chopped fresh Italian (flat leaf) parsley,

1 clove garlic, minced

1 ½  tablespoons unpasteurized raw apple cider vinegar

Store in a glass bottle or jar with a tight fitting lid in the refrigerator.

• Creamy Mustard Dressing

3 tablespoons unpasteurized raw apple cider vinegar

2 tablespoons Ume plum vinegar

1 tablespoon tahini, preferably raw (or roasted)

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

½ cup extra virgin olive oil vinegar

1.       Place the cider vinegar and the Ume plum vinegar in a small bowl.

2.       Wisk in the tahini, a fork works well.

3.       Stir in the mustard.

4.       Add the olive oil, stirring well.

5.       Pour into a glass jar or bottle with a tight lid so the dressing can be shaken before each use.

• Tofu Mayonnaise

While I no longer eat much tofu since it is processed, I do occasionally consume it especially when I’m making something that needs mayonnaise. I don’t keep mayonnaise on hand since I rarely eat it and it would go bad before I could finish a jar. Making tofu mayonnaise is simple, and for vegans, the only way to get to eat mayo. I occasionally make regular mayonnaise from scratch.

Blend in blender till smooth:

8 ounces firm silken tofu

2 tablespoons lemon juice, fresh or 100% pure juice

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

½ teaspoon unrefined sea salt

This  can be used in place of commercial mayonnaise in most recipes.  It won’t cut it on sandwiches if you’re a devoted mayo fan because the taste is so different.  It will work well in dressings.

This won’t keep too long stored in the refrigerator and freezing it will change its texture.

Usually what we see in stores and are most familiar with are salad greens that are eaten raw. Most of us think of these greens as lettuce. I grew up on iceberg lettuce, there was no other choice for salads at that time where I lived. Iceberg got a bad rep for not being nutritious enough, being mostly water and lacking a nutritional bang, however, its high water content makes for a nice crunch in salads. The first time I found red leaf lettuce in a store in my hometown when I was visiting there, my family wondered why I was serving them ‘rotten’ lettuce!

Today you can buy salad mixes in bulk or bags of various greens many of which most people have never seen unless they grow their own. While bagged salad greens are a bit more expensive than buying heads they are more convenient and there is no waste so it’s a good trade-off. The bagged kinds are probably safe to eat without washing but the greens that come from a bulk bin I always rinse several times, then spin dry, since they are exposed to peoples’ hands. Buying in bulk is the most economical because you can buy only what your family will eat in a given time.

Other types of greens are hearty and tolerate cold better. Most of them need to be cooked. I think of them as winter greens. All greens are wonderfully nutritious. It’s good to include them in your meals several days a week. There are so many kinds it’s easy to find some you like. These greens include kale, Collard greens, Swiss chard, beet greens, turnip greens, radish greens, mustard greens, and others you may find. Each has its own unique flavor. To me, some are quite bitter so I mix several kinds together.

These greens can be pre-prepped when you bring them home from the store so they are ready to cook. If you buy greens with their edible root (turnip, beet, radish) cut the green leaves off about an inch above the root. Rinse the roots well and store in the refrigerator, not in a plastic bag, to be eaten later out of hand or in salads.

Prep the green leaves by washing well in several changes of water depending on how much dirt or mud is attached. Mud will be present if the greens were harvested following a heavy rain. At this time, tear (or cut if you must but it takes more time) the leaves (put the hard stems into your compost) into bite-sized pieces and place in a container, I use a 64-ounce yoghurt container, retaining all the moisture that adheres to these leaves from their rinsing, then replace the lid. Cook and eat these prepared greens within a few days.

When prepping greens I keep the longer cooking ones in a different container from those that cook more quickly and add them to the pot after the longer cooking greens have cooked about 5 or 10 minutes so they all get done at the same time. As a general rule you can tell by the texture of the raw leaf which ones take longer. With experience you will know that kale and Collard greens take the longest, spinach and turnip take the shortest amount of time to cook.