6 healthy homemade salad dressing recipes that are super easy to make — from a basic balsamic vinaigrette to peanut, honey mustard and cilantro lime, these delicious dressings will take your salads to the next level. All dressings are gluten-free, vegan-friendly and paleo-friendly.
Regular readers know that I could practically live on salads because I love them so much. They’re such an easy option for healthy eating because you can literally toss a protein and healthy fat over a bed of greens with a ton of veggies or a whole grain and you’ve got yourself a delicious meal. (Check out my tips here –> how to build a meal-sized salad.)
And honestly salads are all about the toppings! Yes, the greens are important, but if you have a ton of flavorful toppings you might not even need a dressing. A drizzle of good balsamic vinegar, a scoop of hummus or even hot sauce will do the trick. Yes, I know it sounds crazy, but I put hot sauce on everything… even salad.
That said, there are definitely times when I’m in the mood for a salad with actual dressing. For times like this I like to whip out one of my homemade salad dressing recipes. The six I’m sharing are my go-tos. I make them all the time, but they’ve never really been featured on the blog because they’re all hidden within different salad recipes. Now they’re all are in one spot for easy reference.
Why make homemade salad dressings? Many store-bought dressings are loaded with processed ingredients, preservatives and sugar so making your own dressing is much healthier. Plus, it’s cheaper! And once you get started making your own you’ll figure out what ratios you like best and it becomes so easy to whip up different variations.
As you’ll notice most of these healthy homemade salad dressings I’m sharing have recurring ingredients — garlic, apple cider vinegar, tamari, maple syrup, sea salt and pepper. So once you have these items in your pantry/fridge you can make a bunch of different dressings!
All of the dressings are made with whole ingredients and yield about 3/4 cup, which is about 12 Tablespoons and 6 servings. Each serving size is 2 Tablespoons. Oh, and if you’re looking for sugar-free options, check out the zesty tahini and the apple cider vinegar dressings.
Zesty Tahini Dressing
- 1/4 cup tahini
- 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 1/4 cup low-sodium tamari or soy sauce
- 1/2 cup nutritional yeast
- 1 Tablespoon minced garlic
Add all ingredients into a blender and blend until combined.
Use it: Garlicky Kale Salad
Apple Cider Vinegar Dressing
- 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
- 1 tablespoon garlic, minced
- 1 teaspoon sea salt + more if needed
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper + more if needed
Add all ingredients into a blender and blend until combined or add to a mason jar and shake to combine. Taste and add more salt and pepper if needed.
Nutrition per serving: 163 calories, 18g fat, 1g carbs, 0g sugar, 0g fiber, 0g protein
Use it: Brussels Sprout Chopped Salad, as a marinade for grilled chicken
Cilantro Lime Dressing
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- juice of 2 limes
- 2 Tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped
- 2 teaspoons minced garlic
- 1 teaspoon maple syrup
- ½-1 teaspoon sea salt
- ½ teaspoon ground pepper
- ¼ teaspoon ground coriander
Add all ingredients into a blender and blend until combined. Taste and add more salt if needed.
Nutrition per serving: 87 calories, 9g fat, 2g carbs, 1g sugar, 0g fiber, 0g protein
Use it: Deconstructed Guacamole Salad, as a marinade for grilled shrimp
Basic Balsamic Dressing
- 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 teaspoon maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon dijon
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- fresh or dried herbs (optional)
Add all ingredients into a blender and blend until combined or add to a mason jar and shake to combine.
Nutrition per serving: 103 calories, 9g fat, 5g carbs, 4g sugar, 0g fiber, 0g protein
Use it: Detox Salad, Salad in a Jar
Honey Mustard Dressing
- 1 lemon, juiced
- 1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- 2 Tablespoons honey (or maple syrup for a vegan version)
- 2 Tablespoons dijon mustard
- 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
- 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
- ground pepper, to taste
- 1/4 cup olive oil
Add all ingredients into a blender and blend until combined or add to a mason jar and shake to combine.
Nutrition per serving: 106 calories, 9g fat, 7g carbs, 6g sugar, 0g fiber, 0g protein
Use it: As a dipping sauce for baked paleo chicken tenders
Peanut Dressing
- ¼ cup peanut butter
- 1 clove garlic, chopped
- 2 teaspoons fresh ginger, chopped
- 2 Tablespoons rice vinegar
- 2 Tablespoons low sodium tamari or soy sauce
- 2 Tablespoons maple syrup
- a pinch of cayenne pepper (optional)
- water, to thin
Add all ingredients into a blender and blend until combined. Add water to thin.
Nutrition per serving: 107 calories, 7g fat, 13g carbs, 7g sugar, 0g fiber, 3g protein
Use it: Kale Salad with Spicy Peanut Dressing, Kale Sweet Potato Brown Rice Bowls, as a dipping sauce for fresh spring rolls
If you try one of these healthy homemade salad dressings please leave me a comment letting me know how it turned out! I’d also love to know what salad you tried it on. 🙂
All of these dressings look amazing, but the cilantro lime would definitely be my favorite!!
Does anyone know how much “one serving” is? Is it a table spoon or how big?
Yup! 1 serving is 2 Tablespoons. 🙂
My favorite as well.
Beautiful post! I love making my own dressings – not only are they much healthier, but taste even better too!
This is perfect! Thank you for putting these all together in one place!
Love all of these! x
Izzy |http://www.pinchofdelight.com
I’ve been looking for healthy salad dressing for awhile now so I’m very happy to see these recipes and cannot wait to try them.
Love your site! Can’t wait to try all the dressings.
I always look forward to finding new recipes that
you post.
Thank you, Susan! So glad you found my site. Enjoy the dressings.
I can’t wait to try the peanut dressing this week- if I add a little more peanut butter, maybe it will be a great faux pad thai or would make a good dipping sauce for chicken skewers. Yum! Thanks Brittany!
Thanks Leah! Everyone LOVES the peanut dressing and I think it would work great as a pad thai sauce — just use less water and keep it thicker! I use it as a dipping sauce for fresh spring rolls all the time.
Awesome recipes and great photos!
Rebecca
xx
http://www.peppermintdolly.com
Love homemade dressing and I’m always looking for fun new flavors to try! These will be perfect! 🙂
CILANTRO LIME PLEASE!! I’m all about those salad toppings for sure!
I don’t know why more people don’t make salad dressing from scratch? So easy and no processed stuff or HFC! This is a great collection for a variety of salads.
Great go-tos here! Love making homemade dressing. These are fab!
Very simple and certainly healthy! Thank you
These all look great! Question about the tahini dressing recipe: you list the lemon juice as “1/4 cup Tablespoons lemon juice” – do you mean 1/4 cup or 1/4 tbsp? I imagine that would make quite a difference, and I’d love to make this soon!
It should be 1/4 cup. Sorry for the confusion and thanks for pointing out this error. Enjoy the dressing. 🙂
Is this the same for the tamari? Is it really 1/4 Tablespoon or should it also be 1/4 cup?
This is a great resource. Thank you!!
Yes, 1/4 cup. So sorry about the confusion.
Love these! I’m trying to get in the habit of making dressings to have on hand. These will definitely help – thanks for sharing!
How long would these last in the fridge after you make them?
I’d say they last about 5 days in the fridge.
I made the apple cider vinegar dressing and ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT. The problem is that after two days in the fridge it is was all clumpy. Any idea why that happened?
What’s the serving size for these dressings?
The serving size is 2 Tablespoons.
Just finished making the Peaut Dressing and it was AWESOME.
Tried the honey mustard one last night. It was fantastic!!!
Yay! So glad you liked it, Renee.
I love the Apple cider vinegar recipe! Do you refrigerate after? I noticed the consistency changed when refrigerated and I’m wondering if it’s necessary.
Hi Meg. Yes, I refrigerate this dressing. The olive oil might solidify a bit, but if you take the dressing out the fridge a bit before you want to use it, the oil will become liquid again and you should be able to whisk and use it regularly.
Do these have to be refrigerated?
Oops, nevermind… just saw the above post
Awesome recipes! I would love your take on Ranch, Caesar and Italian!
I have an avocado ranch recipe that you can check out now, but I’ll add Caesar and Italian to my list of dressings to share. 🙂
I’m allergic to garlic????Should I just leave it out or do you have a suggestion for a replacement?
Oh shoot! Can you do shallots? That might be a good sub.
Shallots no, but chives could work?
I think chives would be a nice substitute. Let me know how it goes!
Oooh no Susie! I’ve never heard of anyone being allergic to garlic????What happens when you eat it if you don’t mind me asking?
Great Great recipes Brittany!! Thank you so much! My husband and I are on a very strict food plan and we have only eaten Tahini dressing or lemon and olive oil and we needed a change! Thanks ????
Thank you for these recipes. They all seem so simple to make.I love making my own salad dressing (haven’t bought bottled dressings in years) and intend to eventually try all of these, but right now I’m stuck on the Apple Cider Vinegar one. It is so delicious!
Thank you, Karen. I’m so glad that you’re loving the ACV dressing. Definitely try the peanut and tahini. They’re both awesome too!
I tried the Apple Cider Vinegar one. It was good, but it felt like it was missing something. So I squeezed about 1/4 lemon in it and that was it, it turned out really amazing and it actually brought up the salt & pepper flavors!
Super simple and delicious, thank you!
These all look very tempting. In your nutritional facts, the sodium isn’t listed. I’ve recently been put on a low sodium diet and finding hidden sodium everywhere. I know I can leave out salt altogether but was wondering if you had any suggestions what to replace it with. And maybe if you know the sodium content of any of these. Thanks so much!
This is the most beautiful and delicious blog post I have ever seen! Bookmarking for the dressing recipes : )
Thank you for posting good easy recipes for dressing. My diet is limited to very fre things, so this help me alot. I would love to try the cilantro lime, but cilantro is one of the no no things for me. What other herb can I use in it place! I will make the regular recipe for my daughter…she will love it.
Maybe parsley? Different taste but I sub cilantro all the time, I hate it. Parsley I love.
I tried last night the Apple cider vinegar salad dressing and OMG! so incredibly delicious!! So glad I found this blog. Can’t wait to try the rest. I do have one questions (since I track everything I eat) how much is 1 serving? a tablespoon? Thank you!
1 serving is 2 Tablespoons. 🙂
These look great? Is there a particular kind of apple cider vinegar you use?
Yes, I really like the Bragg’s unfiltered organic apple cider vinegar.
That honey mustard one looks delicious! I love a nice dressing that uses a great dijon mustard. Thank you for sharing! Can’t wait to make this one for my family.
Thanks for sharing! How long do they last?
They should last at least a week in the fridge!
Hi! I’m going to make the apple cider dressing today. How do you store it after it’s made? Can I leave it out on be counter or should I refrigerate? The oil will usually harden when I refrigerate so I figured I’d ask what you do! Thanks!
I’d definitely store the acv dressing in the fridge. The oil might harden… just take it out of the fridge about 20 minutes before serving and shake it well. This will warm up the oil and allow it to become liquid again.
LOVE these awesome salad dressings! I stopped buying salad dressings because as you said they are not healthy. Thank you so much for these incredible dressing recipes, which I will definately be making. Love the Cilantro Lime!
I made the Tahini salad dressing tonight because I had all those things in my pantry. I haven’t found a Tahini salad dressing that I like very much but this one was really great. The only ingredient I changed was the tamari. I used coconut aminos instead. Very nice balance of tastes. Thank you for putting these out here. I intend to try the other ones too.
Yay! I’m so glad you enjoyed the tahini salad dressings. That is one of my absolute favorites. And I’m sure it was good with the coconut aminos. I bet they added a little hint of sweetness. YUM!
Just made the honey mustard and love it! I plan to work my way through the different recipes :). Is there any issue with the honey getting hard if stored in the fridge? Should I store it on the counter?
I love that they are all dairy free. I’v tried the honey mustard and apple cider ones a few different times. they are delicious. Thank you
I just made the honey mustard for a veggie salad and it’s so good!! Definitely saved this page for future reference to try the others as well!
I just made the Apple Cider Dressing, it is amazing! So full of flavor. Thanks for the recipe.
Hooray! It’s one of my favorites. So glad you enjoyed it. 🙂
Love these dressings! I make the apple cider vinegar often. How big is a serving size?
Awesome! The serving size is 2 Tablespoons. 🙂
I made the Peanut Dressing. Wonderful. I served it over a tossed salad. I also tossed it with spaghetti and matchstick Carrots.
Brittany have tried 3of your dressing and loved them .eating more salad do to u
Thank u send more.
Ahh!! This makes me so happy. Which has been your favorite so far?
Do any of these salad dressings need to be refrigerated?
Yes, they all need to be refrigerated.
I am doing a detox workshop on friday and looking for an easy salad dressing. Thank you for a lovely article and easy to read ingredients plus love the video ! 🙂 I am a health coach too and feel so happy with what you are sharing to the world . Definitely opting for both the apple cider vinegar and cilantro lime one.