Salad Dressing Base

This recipe provides a fat-free, sugar-free and sodium-free base for salad dressings that you use to replace oil in salad dressing recipes. It's reminiscent of pre World War Two salad dressings, before the heavy marketing of oils for salad dressings began. It's also very similar to what commercial manufacturers of low-fat salad dressings use. Like most salad oils, it has a neutral flavour. It may seem like a lot of fuss at first to make it, but you quickly work it into your routine, and for the fat savings, it's very worth it.

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Course Salads, Skinny Food

Ingredients

1 cup Water cold
1/4 teaspoon Xanthan Gum
2 teaspoons Corn Starch

Instructions

Microwave method:

Put the water in a jug or bowl at least three times the capacity (i.e. 3 cups / 750 ml) in size (to prevent boil-over. If you are doubling the recipe, double that bowl size again.) Sprinkle the xanthan gum over the water and whisk in (don't worry about any small lumps at this stage.) Sprinkle the cornstarch over the top, whisking in briefly after each teaspoon. But again don't worry about any small lumps at this stage, they will cook out.
Microwave on high for 2 minutes, whisk, then microwave for a final 2 minutes, take out, whisk, set aside to cool -- about 30 minutes on a counter.

Stovetop method:

Put the ingredients in the order listed in a sauce pan. To avoid big lumps when adding the corn starch, sprinkle it over the surface of the water and whisk well after each teaspoon until blended. Heat the stove top burner to medium high-heat and whisk the mixture until it starts to thicken, about 3 to 5 minutes. Don't let it boil.
Let cool before using -- about 30 minutes.

Notes

Easily doubled or tripled.

Store covered tightly in fridge for up to 2 weeks; after that, discard because mould will set in. A pinch of salt may help extend the storage life a bit.

You can think of this as a "fat free oil."

You may come up with other applications for it, too.

Nothing says you necessarily need to be a purist about this, either. You could sneak in a tablespoon of a healthy oil such as olive, avocado, walnut, etc. for the flavour, depending on what type of salad dressing you are going to make with this.

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