Diet Food Reviews

Annie's Naturals Roasted Red Pepper Vinaigrette Dressing

By: Allison P | May 28, 2009

Salads, particularly ones with lots of dark, leafy greens in lieu of iceberg lettuce, are great for our bodies, providing us with a natural source of vitamins and minerals. Sadly, even a couple of tablespoons of many bottled salad dressings can undo all of our good intentions with unhealthy fats, too many calories and artificial ingredients. Practically every dressing on the market today has some sort of reduced fat and calorie counterpart, but still retains a mile long list of ingredients, most of which sound like they belong in a laboratory rather than your stomach. Annie's Naturals fills a need for a tasty salad dressing made with simple ingredients. Annie's has many different dressing flavors but my favorite is the Roasted Red Pepper Vinaigrette.

It turns out that you don't need a mile long list of goodness knows what to make a little ol' bottle of salad dressing. Annie's does a bang up job with only roasted red peppers (bonus points for the name of the dressing and the first ingredient being the SAME THING), cider vinegar, water, expeller-pressed canola oil, honey, sea salt, garlic, xanthan gum (a natural thickener), black pepper and basil. To plagiarize Rachael Ray, this stuff is Yummo! As the name implies, it tastes like roasted red peppers, only in liquid form with a hint of smoky sweetness. This dressing is delicious on an all vegetable salad, on salads with protein like chicken or even fish, as well as a vegetable dip. It also has a good "cling" factor, meaning it sticks well to whatever you put it on, rather than running off and ending up at the bottom of the plate or bowl.

Each 2 tablespoon serving of Annie's Naturals Roasted Red Pepper Vinaigrette Dressing has 70 calories, 6 grams of total fat (9% of daily recommendations), 0.5 grams of saturated fat, 10% of the RDA for sodium (240 mg), no protein and 3 grams of total carbohydrates, which includes 2 grams of sugars.

There are definitely lower calorie dressings out there (check our reviews), but this is one for those people who want only natural ingredients. Even then, use this salad dressing sparingly. 'Natural' does not equal 'Lower calories.' Annie's Roasted Red Pepper Vinaigrette is also completely vegan and gluten free.

Each 16 ounce bottle contains 8 servings and though I've seen this priced as high $5.00 a bottle in some specialty stores, I got it at Wal-Mart for only $3.89. If you haven't tried Annie's Dressings before, I highly recommend giving them a try. Check out their website for more varieties of Natural Salad Dressings, but as I said, the Roasted Red Pepper flavor in particular is absolutely delish.

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