How fattening is your favourite salad dressing?

Feeling virtuous about eating a healthy salad? Well depending on the dressing used, all the good intentions may have been dashed.

Half a cup (125ml) of standard salad of lettuce, tomato and cucumber WITHOUT dressing contains approximately 120kJ.

We looked at the labels of four popular readymade dressings and, in most cases, adding a single serving (3 tsp) of them to your salad would more than double its kilojoule count.

Here's how they compare:

KNORR

Greek Vinaigrette Salad Dressing

1,442kJ per 100ml

216kJ per 15ml (3 tsp) serving

INA PAARMAN

Balsamic Vinaigrette

613kJ per 100ml

92kJ per 15ml (3 tsp) serving

SPUR

Sweet Chilli Dressing

1,069kJ per 100ml

160kJ per 15ml (3 tsp) serving

STEERS

Italian Salad Dressing

1,279kJ per 100ml

154kJ per 12ml (2 ½ tsp)