How to Make the Perfect Low-Carb Salad

Get creative with your low-carb salad plate.

Don't settle for a boring salad. 

Make your low-carb special by tossing together a mixed-greens wonder that will rival any salad bar out there. 

And while you're at it, why not whip up one of the following recipes for your own homemade salad dressing. You'll be able to easily control the sugar content, as well as the carbs, saving more room for the dressing's fatty goodness.

Easter is right around the corner. Do you have your low-carb menu all set up and ready to go? Done your shopping yet? 

Me neither. 

Our holiday plans for this year are a bit up in the air. We have a close friend that is in the midst of buying a house and was hoping it would close before Easter. If so, we won't be cooking at home this year, so I've been dragging my feet, waiting to hear.

Low-carb Easter menus are not that difficult though. With ham the traditional centerpiece and lots of hard-boiled eggs around, all you need to round out your low-carb meal is a super-nice salad and vegetables with a little bit of extra perk.

Does that sound like too much work this year? 

Are you looking for a holiday short-cut?

Simply skip the extras and toss those lightly steamed or leftover roasted veggies into the salad. Chill it all together and you'll have an extra-special mega-salad treat. When topped with a creamy homemade dressing, you can't help but have a memorable meal the whole family can enjoy together.

But I confess.

I have a hard time dragging out the salad fixings in the dead of winter. 

Winter and hot food just go hand-in-hand, but with spring knocking at the door and summer on the horizon, it's time to start thinking about how to make the perfect low-carb salad.

Summer is Great for Main-Dish Salads

Here in Utah, it's still snowing right now, so I've been trying to look forward to the warm summer months. 

Salads form a large part of a traditional low-carb meal, especially if you're on Atkins Induction, and even though I don't normally serve cold salad for the holidays, the body has been nudging me in that direction again.

Weekends lately have been nice here, though. When hubby and I were out shopping this past weekend, the warm day had me thinking of salad weather, so when we got home, I sauteed up some chicken breast to make a main-dish luncheon salad.

Yep. I'm definitely craving salad.

Strange for me, but salads are a great way to keep your potassium levels up and get in a nice dose of antioxidants and vitamins. They are also extremely versatile. 

While the thought of having to eat another salad might sound boring and repetitive, if you've been depending on tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, and radishes to carry you through your low-carb meal, it's time to rethink those salads.

Don't Limit Your Salad to Just Iceberg Lettuce

If you have a passion for salad-bar goodies, you'll notice that restaurants don't ordinarily serve up just iceberg lettuce. 

In general, a salad bar contains a huge metal bowl of a variety of greens. While iceberg lettuce is definitely economical, mixing it with dark green romaine, green leaf, or red-tipped lettuce varieties can add extra interest and color to your meal.

And don't limit yourself to just lettuce.

The people we rent from gave us a huge bag of assorted greenery last summer, including kale and raw baby spinach leaves in addition to lettuce varieties we'd never tried before.

Use a variety of lettuce types for a nice contrast in color.
Don't just use a boring iceberg lettuce. 

Also, consider tossing in some thinly shredded red cabbage, and if you're on Atkins 40 or Atkins 100 and can tolerate a few extra carbs, a small grated carrot provides a nice contrast to the greenery.

Make sure that you prepare the base for your lettuce with enough time to thoroughly chill the greens. Well chilled lettuce makes a huge difference in how your salad looks and tastes. I try to allow at least three to four hours for the lettuce to get nice and cold. 

In addition, I always make our salads in a glass bowl with a tight-fitting lid.

Pyrex Smart Essential Glass Bowl Set

Glass bowls like the ones above will help to keep those greens nice and crisp and the tight-fitting lid will keep your salad fresh in the refrigerator for several days.

Salad Bar Fixings Add a Special Touch

Once you have a nice base of greens for that holiday or summer salad, it's time to think about how to make those greens more attractive. 

Think about your favorite salad bar fixings. 

Are you adding those types of extras to your low-carb salads or are you relying on tomatoes and cucumbers just to get you by?

Try incorporating your favorite salad bar goodies instead. You'll see a huge difference in the way you look at those salads. How about:

• crumbled bacon pieces
• olives, whole or sliced
• sunflower seeds
• cooked or raw sliced mushrooms
• orange, yellow, or red sweet peppers
• rings of raw red onion
• sliced or chopped hard-boiled eggs
• halved and cooked brussels sprouts
• diced avocado chunks
• cooked green bean pieces
• broccoli or cauliflower florets
• walnuts or pecans
• fresh raspberries
• slices of strawberries
• baby shrimp

Also, think color:

Think about adding color to your everyday salads
by using contrasting extras like black olives
red pepper, and hard-boiled eggs.

While cucumber and celery add a nice crunch to an Easter or summer salad, they will blend in with the greenery. 

Colorful peppers, fresh raspberries, blueberries, black olives, and slices of red onion will provide a nice contrast. For the best low-carb salads, try to incorporate some of both – color and crunch.

Also, make sure that the goodies you add to your assorted lettuces are well chilled as well.

Consider How Your Atkins Salad is Laid Out

Presentation really brings your appetite to life. 

After making sure you use a variety of greenery and a few colorful goodies, don't ruin all of your hard work by just tossing it all together into a plastic bowl. 

How you lay that salad out will take even an everyday salad to a whole new level of interest.

For an Easter or holiday party, a platter of salad makes a nice presentation, as does a huge glass bowl that guests can easily see through. This is where colorful vegetables really matter. 

Sight is a powerful sensory experience that whets the appetite and begins the process of digestion, so take advantage of your senses and make your holiday or summer barbecue a sensory masterpiece.


Carefully lay out those salad additions in an attractive arrangement, and you'll find your guests or family members coming back for more.

A colorful, artistic lettuce salad will whet the appetite
and make eating the Atkins way more fun and exciting!

If you're not that energetic, or you're eating by yourself, you can do something similar in an individual salad bowl. Put the lettuce on the bottom, and meticulously layer the goodies on top in an attractive way, taking special care to think about color.

Since our family is just hubby and me, I often limit the everyday goodies to three or four per salad. This keeps our salads fresh, unique, and interesting.

Don't Skimp on the Salad Dressing

Salad dressing can make or break your salad. That's the cold, hard truth. 

No matter how much work you put into making your Atkins salad attractive, if you use too much or too little, or top it with something that you honestly don't care for, it can seriously backfire on you.

Salad dressings are
just as important as
the salad is.

The salad dressing needs to be thick enough to stick to the greens evenly, once tossed, and just as tasty as the salad is. However, tossing your salad with the dressing ahead of time can also be a mistake. The dressing will cause your greens to wilt and go soggy. 

I've found it better to just offer the dressing on the side. That way, guests and family members can use as much or as little of the salad dressing as they like.

At home, you'll have a good idea of what you and your family members like in the way of dressing, but when you're throwing a barbecue or laying out a holiday spread, you'll want to make sure that you offer two or three different dressings, so none of your guests feel left out. 

Also, consider any allergies or food sensitivities those guests might have. Make sure you offer at least one dressing that everyone can eat safely.

Low-Carb Ranch Dressing

If you like Hidden Valley Ranch dry salad dressing mix, you can make a super-good homemade salad dressing by substituting buttermilk for the regular milk called for on the package. I know that the package contains a powdered buttermilk already in it, but adding the fresh stuff really kicks the flavor of the dressing up a notch.

Both hubby and I react to the dry dressing mix, due to either the buttermilk powder included or the brand of Xanthum gum that Hidden Valley uses (some brands are grown on wheat starch), so I've been experimenting with different recipes for Ranch-Style dressings.

I finally came up with one that we really like. What I discovered was that the amount of dill weed you use really matters.

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup mayonnaise
• 1/3 cup sour cream
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon sliced green onion tops
• 3/4 teaspoon dried dill weed
• 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/4 teaspoon seasoned pepper

In a medium-sized bowl, combine the mayonnaise and sour cream until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Add all of the seasonings at once and stir well. Chill in the refrigerator for several hours before serving.

Makes about 1 cup dressing

Each tablespoon:  75 calories, 8 grams fat, 1/3 of a carb 

*This makes a super-thick salad dressing, which can be used as a dip for raw vegetables, cheese chips, or pork rinds as well as to toss into a salad. If you want the dressing thinner, simply add heavy cream, a tablespoon or two at a time, until it reaches the consistency you want.

Low-Carb Thousand Island Dressing

For years, this homemade Thousand Island Dressing has been our go-to salad dressing, but it's starting to grow old for us, which is why I've been working on coming up with a good Ranch-Style Dressing alternative.

It can be made as simply as stirring together just the mayo and sugar-free catsup, or you can add the extras for a boost in flavor. Adjust the amounts of mayo to catsup to fit your own personal taste. 

Traditionally, Thousand Island Dressing is made with sweet pickle relish, but dill relish makes a great low-carb alternative. For an extra-special something, try adding some crumbled bacon bits to the dressing.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 2 tablespoons sugar-free catsup
• 1 tablespoon dill relish
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1 tablespoon minced onion
• 1/8 teaspoon season pepper

In a medium-sized bowl, combine the mayonnaise and catsup until smooth and creamy. Add all of the seasonings at once, and stir well. Chill for several hours in the refrigerator, until well thickened, before using.

Makes about 1-1/8 cups dressing:

Each tablespoon = 90 calories, 19 grams fat, 1/4 of a carb 

Low-Carb Italian Salad Dressing

Hidden Vallen Ranch Italian Salad Dressing mix contains wheat. I was really shocked when I learned that.

Although homemade Italian Salad Dressing works well, provided you use a good brand of olive oil and vinegar, I really like the combination of herbs and spices that Hidden Valley uses in their dry mix. Unfortunately, that dry mix is a no-go for us, so here's the best Italian dressing I've come up with so far.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
• 3/4 cup good olive oil
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon Italian seasonings
• 1 teaspoon basil
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon guar gum (optional)

Combine the vinegar, oil, and water in a glass jar with a tight-fitting lid, and shake well. Add all of the seasonings at once, except for the vegetable gum. 

This makes a traditional Italian dressing that you have to shake vigorously before using. If you want to emulsify the mixture, pour it all in the blender and add the guar gum. Guar gum will thicken cold liquids, so don't try to use xanthum gum this way. It won't work. 

Chill the dressing for several hours to allow the flavors to blend before using.

Makes about 1-1/8 cup dressing:

Each tablespoon = 82 calories, 9.3 grams fat, 1/4 of a carb

Low-Carb Blue Cheese Dressing

For awhile, blue cheese was my favorite salad dressing. 

I used this dressing more than any other when I was in the weight-loss phase. The flavor comes from the addition of blue cheese crumbles, but this dressing works equally well with feta cheese or any fresh cheese that crumbles easily. I'm guessing it would also work with freshly grated Parmesan, though I've never tried that yet.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 1 cup sour cream
• 2 tablespoons minced onion
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 4 ounces blue cheese crumbles

Combine the mayonnaise and sour cream until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Add the seasonings and cheese all at once and stir well. Chill in the refrigerator for several hours, until well thickened, before using. You can vary this by adding herbs or a bit of dill weed. Seasoned pepper would also be good in this.

Makes about 3 cups dressing:                             

Each tablespoon = 50 calories, 5 grams fat, 1/4 of a carb

Low-Carb Caesar Salad Dressing

When I was cutting down on dietary fats, I used this low-fat Caesar Salad Dressing quite a bit. It tasted much better than the non-fat spray-type salad dressings that were extremely popular in 2007 and 2008. The original dressing recipe came from Mary Dan Eades' blog, but I didn't care for it as written, so I adapted it to fit my own tastes.

Originally, the recipe only had 1 teaspoon of mayonnaise in it, so it was quite thin. It was more like an Italian Salad dressing would be. Although I enjoy Italian and house dressings, I was used to Caesar being much thicker. Plus, Mary's dressing was also quite sour. Because of that, I changed the recipe dramatically.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup lemon or lime juice
• 1 tablespoon spicy brown mustard or Dijon
• 1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce
• 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 2 tablespoons grapeseed oil
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 2 tablespoons dried Parmesan cheese
• 1 pack Splenda (equals 2 tsp sugar)
• 1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt
• 1/4 teaspoon seasoned pepper
• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon guar gum

Put all ingredients into the blender and give it a whirl. The amount of guar gum you need will depend on how thick you want the dressing to be. If you don't mind a super thin dressing, you can leave the vegetable gum out. Chill the dressing in the refrigerator for several hours before using.

Makes about 3/4 cup of dressing:

Each tablespoon = 44 calories, 4-1/2 grams fat, 1 carb

Low-Carb Faux Honey-Mustard Salad Dressing

I love honey mustard, but I can't handle the sugar-free honey that's on the market today, due to the sugar alcohols. I came up with this alternative. 

If sugar-free honey doesn't bother you, or if a non sugar-alcohol sugar-free honey is available in your area, you can use a little of that instead of the Splenda. This dressing makes a great dip for hard-boiled eggs.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 2 tablespoons spicy brown mustard or Dijon
• 2 packs of Splenda (equals 4 teaspoons sugar)

Combine all ingredients and chill thoroughly. To make this dressing thinner, you can use heavy cream, a tablespoon at a time, until it reaches the desired consistency.

Makes about 1-1/8 cups dressing:

Each tablespoon = 90-1/2 calories, 10 grams fat, 1/10 of a carb