I love salads, but they can represent one of the biggest health traps of any dish on the table. It’s quite tempting to add bacon, cheese, processed croutons and that favorite creamy, fat-filled dressing to a bed of greens and veggies. By the time you stack up all of those extras, your salad is pretty much unrecognizable.

It’s easy to leave off the bacon and cheese, but it helps to blend a dressing throughout to add both moisture and flavor. Who wants dry salad? That’s where ranch, honey mustard and bleu cheese usually come into play. A vinaigrette is a much lighter, better choice, but unfortunately I’ve never been a fan of most vinaigrettes. I’m not much of a fan of vinegar-based substances in any form. It’s just not something that pleases my tastebuds.

In recent months I’ve been working on my health, both through more exercise and a better overall diet. I’ll eat vegetables every day of the week—and I’ve enjoyed salads since I was a kid—but the dressing has always been a stumbling block to a healthy choice—until now. During a recent online search of how to assemble vinaigrette dressings, I came across a simple recipe that tastes great tossed with simple spinach leaves and whatever other veggies you want to add. This dressing adds a ton of flavor, while not adding many calories to your salad, allowing the green stuff to achieve its intended purpose!

Here’s what you mix thoroughly to make it.

3 Tablespoons Red Wine Vinegar

1 teaspoon crushed garlic

¼ teaspoon salt

Dash of olive oil

Note: You can substitute ¼ teaspoon of garlic salt in place of both the garlic and salt to cut an ingredient.

Yield: Flavors a bowl of hearty, tossed salad for 2. Multiply for more yield.