Are you Saucey?

I've had a special request to blog with all of my fav sauces and dressings. I'm happy to do this because they can easily turn a healthy meal, into high fat sugar coma meal. Think about it, you make a big salad, full of all the good stuff. Then you grab your favourite bottle of salad dressing and dump it on. Suddenly your veggies have become a vessel to shovel salt, sugar and dairy fat into your body. And its not just salads that we do this with. Pasta sauces can be some of the worst offenders. We all know to avoid white pasta, many have made the switch to brown rice pasta or chickpea pasta. But then you grab high fat store bought alfredo sauce, or a sugary jar of tomato sauce. So here are some amazing alternatives:

Olive Oil + Balsamic vinegar + minced garlic - I enjoy this one on quinoa with steamed veggies and black beans. Would be great on a salad too!

Olive Oil + Tamari + minced garlic - This one is excellent with shrimp! Cold shrimp salad, or quinoa with steamed veg and shrimp.

Olive Oil + Lemon Juice + dried mustard - Or, crushed mustard seeds. This makes for a lovely cold salad dressing. Add some avacado to spinach, cucumber and hard boiled eggs. Super filling and full of flavour. 

Drop an avacado into the blender or magic bullet. Then juice from a whole lemon. Then some dill (about 2 tablespoons), some salt and pepper to taste. If you like onion, this is also amazing with a bit of green onion. Blend! Pour this over anything hot. Like anything! Roasted potato with asparagus. Pasta. Roasted veggies of any kind. And it works with any herb really. Swap out the dill for basil to add to pasta. This sauce coats everything like a thick rich alfredo sauce.

Warm olive oil in a pan. Add a quart of cherry tomato (cut each one in half, then squish them and drop into the pan) + shredded fresh basil + Juice from a half a lemon + minced garlic + spinach. Theres an easy pasta sauce that packs a ton of flavour. 

But sometimes we're looking for a hearty tomato marinara sauce. This one is truly GOOD. Dice up an onion and one carrot. Saute them for 4-5 min. Add three cloves of minced garlic one teaspoon of dried thyme and some dried hot pepper flakes to taste. Then take one 28 ounce can of tomatos -take out each tomato and place it in your fist, then crush and drop. Its a bit of a stress relief too! Add about 3/4 of the juice from the can and then leave to simmer. Heat at medium- low for about 25-30min. Add more garlic or thyme to taste as it simmers. Easy and OMG good. 

Theres no excuses now to ever buy a sauce or dressing. Its pretty rare that something designed for storage, shipping and handling, mass production and  able to sit on a shelf for MONTHS is full of good healthy ingredients. Think about it. Look at expirey dates, then think "what real food stays good for 12 months?"

These sauces are versatile. They can be used hot or cold, as dips or dressings, sauces or spreads. And none of them take more then a few minutes to throw together. 

I'd LOVE to hear from you. What did you do with your sauce or dressing? What worked, what didn't? 

And remember - this blog was a special request! Thats right, a dear client of mine asked that I post this, and here it is. Feel free to make your special request.