The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced a potentially massive recall of some foods believed to be tainted with salmonella, it was reported on Friday.

The FDA ordered the recall after salmonella was detected in hydrolyzed vegetable protein, a food additive commonly used in thousands of foods, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The vegetable protein was made at a plant operated by Basic Food Flavors Inc. of Las Vegas, according to the FDA.

The tainted foods include salad dressing, chip dip, soup mixes and other items, according to the FDA.

The contamination currently presents a low risk to consumers, and there are no reports so far of people getting sick after eating the tainted foods, the FDA said.

But the agency called for caution and urged food producers to check inventories for items that used the recalled lots of the protein.

Only a few specific brands or products have been recalled since contamination was discovered last month, but "we expect this to get larger over the next several days to several weeks," said Jeff Farrar, FDA associate commissioner of food safety.

Salmonella is a bacterial infection that is passed to humans from animals, including poultry, cattle, pigs, and domestic animals. Symptoms include diarrhea, vomiting, fever and abdominal pain. Healthy people generally recover without treatment, but salmonella can kill the very young, the elderly and people with weak immune systems.