Seed Oil Free Salad Dressing: What to Look For (and What We Use Instead)

Flip over almost any bottle of salad dressing in the supermarket and look at the first ingredient. More often than not it's a seed oil, sometimes named, sometimes hiding behind two simple words: vegetable oil.

When we started Get Dressed, we wanted dressings made the way you'd make them at home. That meant leaving seed oils out completely. Here's what they are, how to spot them, and what we use instead.

What are seed oils?

Seed oils are oils extracted from the seeds of plants. The ones you'll see most often on Australian labels are:

• Canola oil
• Sunflower and high oleic sunflower oil
• Soybean oil
• Rice bran oil
• Cottonseed oil
• Grapeseed oil
• Safflower oil
• Corn oil

Most are refined, which makes them neutral in flavour and shelf stable for a long time.

Why are they in so many dressings?

Oil is usually the biggest ingredient in a dressing, so it makes a big difference to cost. Refined seed oils are inexpensive and taste of very little, which is exactly why large manufacturers use them. The catch is that the flavour then has to come from somewhere else, which is often where added sugar, flavourings, gums and thickeners come in.

How to spot seed oils on a label

• Check the first ingredient. Ingredients are listed from most to least, so the first one tells you what you're mostly pouring.
• Look out for "vegetable oil". It's usually a blend of seed oils, and the label doesn't have to tell you which.
• Watch for "and/or". Phrases like "canola and/or sunflower oil" mean the oil can change from batch to batch.
• Read the rest of the list too. Gums (like xanthan or guar gum), modified starches and preservatives (numbers like 202 or 211) are common in bottled dressings that are built to sit on a shelf.

What we use instead

Every Get Dressed dressing is made without seed oils. Instead we use:

• Extra virgin olive oil in our Classic and Tahini dressings. Fruity, peppery and full of flavour on its own.
• Cold pressed walnut oil in our Miso dressing. Rich and gently nutty, it carries the white miso, ginger and citrus beautifully.

We sweeten with honey or maple, never refined sugar. And there are no added gums, modified starches or artificial preservatives, which is why our dressings separate in the fridge. That's a good sign. Give it a proper shake and you're good to go.

"But isn't tahini made from seeds?"

Good question, and yes. Tahini is ground sesame seeds. The difference is that tahini is a whole food, the entire seed blended into a paste, rather than an oil that's been extracted and refined. The oil in our Tahini Dressing is extra virgin olive oil.

Our dressing rules

• No seed oils
• No refined sugar
• No added gums, modified starches or artificial preservatives
• Gluten free
• Small batch, made in Australia

Ready to get dressed?

Pick any three of Classic, Tahini and Miso in our build your own 3-pack for $55, with free shipping when you order two packs. Not sure where to start? Our recipes have plenty of ideas for every bottle.

Naked food, so rude.
Gabrielle