Production of Low Calorie Salad Dressings

Low calorie salad dressings are oil-in-water emulsion products, in which the oil content has been substantially decreased. This decrease, however, is accompanied by reduction in the viscosity hence, an undesirable texture. To overcome this, oil replacers are generally used. In this research, maltodextrin and xanthan gum were used to replace part of the oil in the production of two kinds of salad dressings mayonnaise and three Italian salad dressing. Various formulations of these products with varying amounts of oil, maltodextrin and gum at different temperatures were produced. Viscosities in the range of 50-140 Pa.s for mayonnaise and 2-15 Pa.s for Italian dressing were accepted as positive criteria and samples in these ranges were chosen for organoleptic and microbial tests. The results showed that in the formulation of mayonnaise, simultaneous increase in the amount of oil, maltodextrin and gum created a high viscosity, but the temperature did not play any significant role. In the Italian salad dressing, the increase in the amount of gum was accompanied by development of pseudoplastic characteristics which was not desirable, hawever, the effect of temperature on providing acceptable texture was found to be important. Although the formulated mayonnaise enjoyed a fairly acceptable quality, the Italian salad dressing samples, were ranked superior to the common Italian salad dressing available in the Iranian market. .