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This easy Sweet & Creamy Kale Salad Dressing only requires six simple ingredients! It’s sweet, creamy, and a little tangy – and it’s the perfect balance for the bitterness of hearty greens like kale. My husband loves it! It’s a THM S, low carb, and sugar free.
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“I’m tired of Romaine!”
Once upon a time, Ryan told me that he was tired of Romaine lettuce. He wanted some REAL greens, like kale. So ever after that, I bought bags of spinach and chopped kale for salads. Kale is very…toothsome. It’s a hearty green, which is a nice way of saying that it can easily make one feel like a cow munching roughage.
Enter this dressing. The sweetness and creaminess of the dressing balances out the bitterness of kale really well. I stir the dressing into the kale before serving so every leaf has a thin coating, which makes the kale wilt slightly and go down the hatch much, much easier. It’s actually downright pleasant.
I don’t usually use this as a “pour over the top” kind of dressing, although I’m sure you can!
Corn Chip Salad, but low carb
This Sweet & Creamy Kale Salad Dressing is based on an old traditional “corn chip salad” dressing. To recreate that salad in THM S + low carb form, toss this dressing with the following:
- lettuce or kale + spinach
- bacon bits or cooked and crumbled bacon
- chopped hardboiled eggs
- shredded cheddar cheese
- chopped onion
- chopped tomato
- something for crunch (traditionally corn chips – which are definitely not on plan – but you could try crushed pork rinds?)
Or keep it simple and just toss with your favorite greens and some nonstarchy veggies like sliced cucumber and broccoli, then top with some shredded cheese.
My newest favorite addition: mild pickled banana pepper rings for some acidic zing.
You may also enjoy:
-
all of my salad dressing recipes
-
this Better-than-Ranch Dressing recipe
-
this Strawberry Vinaigrette recipe
Check out my second cookbook, Convenient Food, for more salad dressing options like Asian Vinaigrette, Balsamic & Lime Vinaigrette, and Creamy Sweet Onion Dressing!
Sweet & Creamy Kale Salad Dressing
- Total Time: 5 minutes
- Yield: 2 1/3 cups
Description
This easy Sweet & Creamy Kale Salad Dressing only requires six simple ingredients! It’s sweet, creamy, and a little tangy – and it’s the perfect balance for the bitterness of hearty greens like kale. My husband loves it! It’s a THM S, low carb, and sugar free.
Ingredients
1 cup (208g) mayonnaise
2/3 cup (158ml or 153g) unsweetened almond milk
½ cup (120g) reduced fat sour cream
3 tablespoons (45ml or 45g) apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon (14g) THM Super Sweet Blend (to taste)
½ teaspoon onion powder
OPTIONAL ADDITIONS:
¼ teaspoon chili powder
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
¼ teaspoon smoked paprika
1/8 teaspoon cayenne
Instructions
Whisk the ingredients together until smooth. Taste the dressing and adjust the sweetness, spices, and vinegar as desired. You can also thin it out with some water or more almond milk if you like. It will thicken up a bit in the fridge.
STORAGE: Store in an airtight container in the fridge. This recipe just fits into a Tupperware salad dressing shaker (but I whisk it together in a bowl first to give me plenty of room). The dressing should be good for at least two weeks.
USE: My favorite way to use this dressing is to toss it with hearty greens, like kale. I don’t usually use it as a “pour over the top” kind of dressing, although you can. I love when it’s a thin coating on every single leaf of bright, fresh green. The sweetness and creaminess of the dressing balance out the bitterness of kale really well. This amount of dressing will dress a lot of greens. (The recipe makes 18 servings.) Start light with the dressing, stir to coat the greens, then add more dressing as necessary. Overdressed salad just gets soggy.
“Corn Chip Salad”: This dressing is based on an old traditional “corn chip salad” dressing. To recreate that salad in THM S form, toss this dressing with the following in your desired amounts: lettuce or kale + spinach, bacon bits or cooked and crumbled bacon, chopped hardboiled eggs, shredded cheddar cheese, chopped onion, chopped tomato, something for crunch (traditionally corn chips – which are definitely not on plan – but you could try crushed pork rinds?). Top the salad with some extra bacon, hardboiled egg, cheese, and pork rinds to make it pretty.
Or keep it simple and just toss with your favorite greens and some nonstarchy veggies like sliced cucumber and broccoli, then top with some shredded cheese. My newest favorite addition: mild pickled banana pepper rings for some acidic zing.
Notes
If using homemade apple cider vinegar (which tends to be not as strong as storebought), I might use 4 tablespoons.
To cut down on the calories you could use some additional sour cream in place of some of the mayo.
Sweetener: Use your favorite low glycemic sweetener in place of the THM Super Sweet Blend (to taste) if you prefer.
Allergy info: Gluten free. To make it dairy free you could try using more mayo in place of the sour cream. Try water instead of the almond milk for a nut free option.
- Prep Time: 5 mins
- Cook Time: 0 mins
- Category: salad dressing
- Method: no cook
- Cuisine: healthy fats, THM S, low carb, sugar free
Keywords: THM, Trim Healthy Mama, low carb, sugar free, gluten free, dairy free, nut free
For dairy free folks, 1/4 cup of coconut cream works well in dressings paired with mayo, and it doesn’t taste like coconut! Just throw a can of coconut milk (full fat!) in the fridge overnight and the cream rises to the top of the can!
That’s great to know! Thank you!
I don’t usually buy fat free sour cream but I have full fat right now. I was thinking of subbing fat free yogurt for half of the sour cream, would it still be an S for THM?
You can use your full fat sour cream in the dressing. 🙂 I just used reduced fat to cut down on calories. You could try fat free Greek yogurt in place of some or all of the sour cream (the dressing may be more tangy). Regular yogurt has more carbs so is best kept to an E setting.
Since I like all of the ingredients in your dressing – and since I try to eat the 50/50 spring mix salad – all dark leafy lettuces, and since my preference would be romaine and/or iceberg, I’m always looking for ways to make it go down easier. This recipe looks like it would help.
Something else that helps is an inexpensive chopping thing I bought at Walmart for about $15.00 last year. I saw on a YouTube video the darker salads makes it easier to eat more, and I’ve found it to be true. It winds up looking more like a bowl of coleslaw (not quite that small, but close). So you might consider trying that too. 🙂
★★★★★
Thanks for the suggestion! I’m guessing that would be kind of like Subway’s chopped salads!