Low Fat Coleslaw (No Mayo, Under 1g Fat)
Coleslaw is one of those things you stop eating without ever quite deciding to.
A jacket potato turns up with a scoop on the side and you scrape it off. The buffet table gets a wide berth. Somebody hands you a plate at a barbecue and you spend the next hour wondering whether you should have said something.
The problem was never the cabbage. It’s the mayonnaise, which is around three-quarters fat — and that’s what makes a small spoonful of shop-bought coleslaw far heavier than it looks.
So I swapped it out. This low fat coleslaw uses a thick yoghurt dressing instead, and it comes in at under 1g of fat per serving compared to roughly 20g for the standard supermarket version. It’s crisp, it’s tangy, it’s properly creamy, and — the bit that actually matters — it still tastes like coleslaw rather than cabbage in yoghurt.
It takes about fifteen minutes, most of which is shredding. You’ll need five ingredients for the dressing, all of which you probably already have.
Ingredients
For the coleslaw
- 400 g white cabbage or kalettes finely shredded (about half a small cabbage)
- 2 medium carrots coarsely grated
- ½ small red onion very finely sliced
- 2 spring onions finely sliced (optional)
For the low-fat coleslaw dressing
- 150 g 0% fat Greek yoghurt
- ½ tsp Dijon mustard
- 1 tbsp white wine vinegar or lemon juice
- ¼ tsp caster sugar
- ¼ tsp fine salt
- Black pepper to taste
Method
- Shred the cabbage or kalettes as finely as you can — a mandoline or the slicing blade of a food processor/mini chopper makes short work of it. Grate the carrots and slice the onion very thinly.
- Put the cabbage, carrot and onion into a large bowl and toss with your hands to separate everything out.
- In a smaller bowl, whisk the yoghurt, mustard, vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper together until completely smooth. Taste it now — it should be tangy and slightly sweet. Adjust before it goes anywhere near the vegetables.
- Pour the dressing over the vegetables and mix thoroughly, making sure every strand is coated.
- Cover and chill for at least 20 minutes. This is the step that turns it from cabbage salad into proper coleslaw. Stir again before serving.
Notes
Don’t skip the resting time. Twenty minutes lets the cabbage soften slightly and the dressing thicken around it.
Use thick yoghurt. 0% Greek yoghurt, not thin natural yoghurt — otherwise the dressing runs off and collects at the bottom.
Shortcut: a 400g bag of ready-shredded coleslaw mix works perfectly and saves ten minutes.
Make it sharper with an extra splash of vinegar, or milder with an extra teaspoon of yoghurt.
Salting the cabbage — if you have time, toss the shredded cabbage with a pinch of salt, leave for 20 minutes, then squeeze out the liquid. Gives a crunchier result that stays crisp longer.
STORAGE
- Fridge: 2–3 days in an airtight container
- It will release liquid as it sits — pour it off and give it a stir
- Not suitable for freezing
Why Shop-Bought Coleslaw Is So High in Fat
Mayonnaise is oil, essentially — around 75g of fat per 100g. Coleslaw is roughly a third dressing by weight, which is how a side portion that looks harmless ends up carrying more fat than the meal it’s sitting next to.
Even the reduced-fat tubs are higher than most people expect, because taking fat out of mayonnaise means putting something else in, and it’s usually not much of an improvement.
A low fat dressing for coleslaw solves this without losing anything you actually care about. Yoghurt brings the creaminess, mustard brings the savoury depth, vinegar brings the sharpness. Between them they do the whole job.
Comparison table follows here:
| Coleslaw | Fat per 100g (approx) |
|---|---|
| Standard shop-bought | ~25g |
| “Reduced fat” shop-bought | ~10g |
| Homemade with mayonnaise | ~20g |
| This recipe | Under 1g |
What Makes This Low Fat Coleslaw Dressing Work
Most people who’ve tried a yoghurt coleslaw and hated it were missing one of three things.
Thick yoghurt. 0% fat Greek yoghurt, not natural yoghurt. Thin yoghurt slides straight off the cabbage and pools at the bottom of the bowl.
Mustard. Dijon, half a teaspoon. This is the ingredient doing the heavy lifting — it replaces the savoury, slightly eggy depth that mayonnaise brings, and without it the dressing tastes flat.
A pinch of sugar. Not optional. Shop-bought coleslaw is sweeter than people realise, and a low calorie coleslaw made without any sweetness at all tastes sour rather than creamy. A quarter teaspoon is enough.
Then let it sit. Twenty minutes in the fridge softens the cabbage very slightly and lets the dressing thicken around it. Straight out of the bowl it tastes like a salad; twenty minutes later it tastes like coleslaw.
Is It Low Carb Too?
Cabbage, carrot and onion are all naturally low in carbohydrate, so this works well as a low-carb coleslaw as well as a low fat one. If you’re watching carbs closely, leave out the carrot and the pinch of sugar, or use a sweetener instead — you’ll lose a little sweetness but the dressing still holds together.
What to Serve Low Fat Coleslaw With
Coleslaw earns its keep next to plain food. Anything grilled, baked or cold that could do with a bit of tang and crunch is fair game.
With a jacket potato. The obvious one, and the reason most people miss coleslaw in the first place. A baked potato, a spoonful of slaw and a little low fat cottage cheese or tuna makes a genuinely filling lunch for very little fat.
With grilled or roast chicken. Plain chicken breast is the backbone of a lot of low fat cooking and it badly needs something alongside it. This does the job better than a dressing-free salad ever will.
In a sandwich or wrap. Chicken and coleslaw, or ham and coleslaw, on granary bread. Drain off any liquid first so it doesn’t go through the bread.
With white fish. Baked cod or haddock with new potatoes and a spoonful of coleslaw on the side — the sharpness works in the same way a wedge of lemon does.
As part of a buffet or barbecue spread. Make a double batch. It sits happily on a table, it goes with everything, and nobody will guess there’s no mayonnaise in it.
With a burger. Piled on top rather than served beside — it replaces both the sauce and the salad in one go.
With cold meats and pickles. A ploughman’s-style plate with lean ham, coleslaw, tomatoes and crusty bread. Very little effort, feels like a proper meal.
Low fat potato salad. Another side dish recipe that goes will with salads.
Low Fat Coleslaw (No Mayo, Under 1g Fat)
Ingredients
Method
- Shred the cabbage or Kalettes as finely as you can — a mandoline or the slicing blade of a food processor makes short work of it. Grate the carrots and slice the onion very thinly.
- Put the cabbage, carrot and onion into a large bowl and toss with your hands to separate everything out.
- In a smaller bowl, whisk the yoghurt, mustard, vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper together until completely smooth. Taste it now — it should be tangy and slightly sweet. Adjust before it goes anywhere near the vegetables.
- Pour the dressing over the vegetables and mix thoroughly, making sure every strand is coated.
- Cover and chill for at least 20 minutes. This is the step that turns it from cabbage salad into proper coleslaw. Stir again before serving.
Nutrition
Notes
Tried this recipe?
Let us know how it was!Frequently Asked Questions
Standard shop-bought coleslaw is usually a problem because of the mayonnaise, which is roughly 75% fat. Without a gallbladder, bile drips into the small intestine continuously rather than being released in a concentrated burst, so a sudden hit of fat is harder to process and can cause discomfort.
A yoghurt-based coleslaw like this one contains under 1g of fat per serving, which most people manage without any trouble. As always, introduce it in a normal-sized portion and see how you get on.
You can, but light mayonnaise is still around 25–30g of fat per 100g, which is considerably more than yoghurt.
If you’d rather not go fully mayo-free, use half yoghurt and half light mayonnaise. You’ll get a slightly richer flavour at roughly a third of the fat of a standard coleslaw.
Any thick low fat or fat free natural yoghurt works well. Avoid thin, pourable yoghurt — the dressing won’t cling to the cabbage and you’ll end up with liquid in the bottom of the bowl.
Low fat quark also works and gives a very thick result, though you may want to loosen it with a splash of water and add a little extra sugar, as it’s noticeably sharper.
Yes. A plain, unsweetened soya or oat yoghurt works well and keeps the fat content low.
Check the label on coconut yoghurt — it’s often high in fat, sometimes more than 15g per 100g, which defeats the point.
A few hours ahead is ideal — it actually improves after an hour or two in the fridge.
Beyond that it starts to release liquid and go watery. It’s still perfectly good the next day; just drain off the liquid and stir it through before serving.
Almost always one of two things: not enough sugar, or not enough mustard.
Yoghurt is naturally tangy, and shop-bought coleslaw is sweeter than most people realise. A quarter teaspoon of sugar and half a teaspoon of Dijon is usually the fix. Add a little at a time and taste as you go.
Yes. At around 45 calories per serving, it’s roughly a quarter of the calories of a standard shop-bought coleslaw, which typically comes in at 150–180 calories for the same amount. Almost all of that difference is the mayonnaise.
Cabbage and onion are naturally low in carbohydrate, so this is already reasonably low-carb coleslaw territory.
To reduce it further, leave out the carrot and swap the sugar for a pinch of sweetener. You’ll lose a bit of colour and sweetness, but the dressing works exactly the same.
It goes with almost anything you’d normally have coleslaw alongside — jacket potatoes, grilled or roast chicken, cold meats, sandwiches and wraps, or as part of a buffet spread.
It’s particularly good with plainly cooked lean protein, where you want something with a bit of tang to liven the plate up.
