The Best Salad Dressings for People with Diabetes
Updated: May 06, 2022We found the best bets for salad dressing for people with diabetes. You can find all of the brands at the grocery store or on Amazon, too!
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If you have diabetes, you might wonder if salad dressing even has a place in your diet. In fact, dressing is a great way to eat more healthy fats, helping your body absorb the fat-soluble vitamins found in your salad.
Choose dressings made with avocado oil, olive oil or vegetable oils like canola, sunflower and safflower. But stay away from dressing that’s high in saturated fat, which can lead to inflammation and chronic illness, possibly making your diabetes harder to control. (Examples of saturated fats include buttermilk, sour cream, mayonnaise and heavy cream.) Stick to a salad dressing with less than 3 grams of saturated fat per serving.
Beware of fat-free salad dressings, though, as some achieve flavor by adding in lots of sugar. This can drive up the total carbohydrate count of the dressing and throw off your blood sugar management. Choose a dressing with 6 grams or less of total carbohydrate per serving.
Finally, serving size is important to pay attention to. Even if you’ve chosen a dressing full of healthy fats and with no added sugar, it will likely pack a punch in terms of calories. Having more than one serving at a time can lead to weight gain, making diabetes more difficult to control.
Vegan Lemon Garlic Salad Dressing
Tessemae’s
Not only is this dressing organic, it also contains absolutely no additives or preservatives. The ingredient list is only six items long, all of which are healthy and recognizable. Pair Tessamae’s dressing with a protein-packed salad for a complete meal.
Nutrition Facts
1 tablespoon: 90 calories, 11g fat (1g saturated fat), 0g carbohydrate, 55g sodium.
Healthy Vinaigrette
Bragg
Bragg vinaigrette is a salad dressing—but it’s also an awesome marinade for meat and veggies. Coconut aminos provide that satisfying salty flavor with a measly 35 grams of sodium per serving. Honey adds a touch of sweetness without any added refined sugar, while keeping the total carb count down to only 4 grams.
Nutrition Facts
2 tablespoons: 90 calories, 9g fat (1.5g saturated fat), 4g carbohydrate, 35g sodium.
Avocado Cilantro Vinaigrette
Organic Girl
Organic Girl makes a delicious creamy dressing that you won’t even realize is a vinaigrette, due in part to the avocado it contains. This product also uses agave nectar, a low glycemic index alternative to sugar that still delivers on flavor. Learn more about healthy carbohydrates.
Nutrition Facts
2 tablespoons: 120 calories, 13g fat (1.5g saturated fat), 2g carbohydrate, 80g sodium.
Sugar Free Balsamic Vinaigrette
Maple Grove Farms of Vermont
This sugar-free balsamic dressing is super low in calories, fat and carbs. The natural sweetness of this dressing comes from an artificial sweetener, sucralose. While artificial sweeteners aren’t a great choice for some as they may cause stomach upset, they can be helpful to those with diabetes.
Nutrition Facts
2 tablespoons: 10 calories, 0g fat (0g saturated fat), 1g carbohydrate, 90g sodium.
Ginger Carrot Dressing
Wafu
Take a break from your go-to vinaigrette with this ginger carrot dressing from Wafu. It can even be used as a dipping sauce for dumplings or spring rolls. It does contain sugar, but the amount is so small that each serving only provides 3 grams of carbohydrates, affecting your blood sugars the same as most other dressings on this list.
Nutrition Facts
2 tablespoons: 70 calories, 7g fat (0.5g saturated fat), 3g carbohydrate, 170g sodium.
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Brianna’s Home Style
Brianna’s Champagne Caper Vinaigrette packs a lot of punch into a lower sodium package. This is partly due to the capers it contains—the flower buds of the caper bush that provide delicious savory flavor. You can even buy capers at the store to make a healthy homemade salad dressing, too.
Nutrition Facts
2 tablespoons: 120 calories, 10g fat (0.5g saturated fat), 6g carbohydrate, 140g sodium.
Avocado Lime Dressing & Marinade
Brick House Vinaigrettes
This dressing combines healthy fats from avocado, hemp seed oil and grapeseed oil to achieve a creamy texture with hardly any saturated fat. Pair a salad topped with this vinaigrette with any of these diabetic-friendly Mexican recipes.
Nutrition Facts
1 tablespoon: 50 calories, 5g fat (0.5g saturated fat), 3g carbohydrate, 30g sodium.
