As fitness enthusiasts, we are always looking for foods or food products that are either calorie-free or low in calories. In my most recent post, I pointed out tons of products and food ideas that are virtually calorie-free to help you stay full while dieting. One of the many products I mentioned were salad dressings. More specifically, I listed Walden Farm’s salad dressings as some of the best calorie-free dressings on the market. Instead of consuming hundreds of calories from something as stupid as a salad dressing that is packed with sugar and fats, save those calories and “spend” them on some delicious whole foods. Anyway, today I will be giving an honest review of one of WF’s salad dressings. The flavor I will be reviewing as you can see in the picture is: blue cheese!
“Bleu” Cheese
Initial impression
Salad dressing in a glass bottle, fancy! The bottle looks nice. Nice label. The bottle has a sleek and nice design. It’s also transparent, which is good, given that I want to see what the heck I’ll be eating (the eyes eat before the mouth!). After careful inspection of the white liquid inside and the flipping the bottle over a few times to examine the consistency, it seems that the dressing is a bit thick. This thick consistency gives it a realistic vibe. Albeit a bit thick, it’s still a bit watery/runny.
Consistency rating: 7/10
Ingredient profile
“How the heck can a salad dressing be calorie-free?” is what I asked myself when I discovered this gem. Being the curious cat I am, I picked up a bottle and started skimming through the ingredients to see what this dressing is made of. Here are the ingredients as listed on the label:
- Triple filtered purified water
- White vinegar
- Vegetable fiber
- Salt
- Xanthan gum
- Food color
- Cellulose gel
- Blue Cheese flavor
- Lactic acid
- Onion powder
- Potassium sorbate
- Sodium benzoate (to preserve freshness)
- Lemon
- Sucralose
- Cayenne pepper
So far, so good. I don’t see any “bad” ingredients. Judging by the ingredient profile, I see the potential of product being calorie-free. They are not really using any real ingredients and the product is mostly, thus it has zero (or very few) calories.
Ingredient profile rating: 10/10
Nutrition Facts
What makes this dressing or any of Walden Farm’s salad dressings special? All their dressings are:
- Calorie free
- Sugar free
- Fat free
- Gluten free
- Carbohydrate free
- Cholesterol free
Nutrition facts transparency: 10/10
Taste/Smell
Smell
We now get to the most important part of this review; how does this dressing smell and taste? First, the dressing has a somewhat thick paste- like consistency. I took a whiff as soon as I opened it and it doesn’t smell bad at all! It has a tangy/savory smell that will wake up your olfactory receptors. This dressing smells like a combination of vinegar and very mild authentic blue cheese that we buy at the supermarket. So far, so good.
Smell rating: 7.5/10
Taste
I added a bit of the dressing to my salad and I must say it’s much better than I had anticipated. To give you a precise breakdown of what this dressing tastes like, imagine the following combination of ingredients consumed together:
- Vinegar
- Water
- Hint of lemon
- Mild hint of blue cheese (very mild)
- Hint of mint?
So, overall it doesn’t taste bad, but don’t expect it to taste anywhere like real blue cheese! Though it does have a hint of blue cheese flavor, it doesn’t taste half as strong as a real piece of blue cheese. Also, don’t put too much on whatever food you will be adding this too because you will get sick of the flavor. Ironically, less is more. To enhance the flavor, squeeze a lemon/lime over your salad and add a couple of tablespoons of this dressing. This combination seems to work well.
Taste: 6.5/10
Should you buy Walden Farm’s Bleu Cheese dressing?
For a calorie-free dressing and realistic-smelling/looking dressing, the product is not bad at all. However, I will not be buying this specific flavor again. It just wasn’t my cup of tea.
Overall rating: 7/10
With that said, this would still be a nice addition to salads and other appetizers. You can use it as a dip, too!
