Herby Green Goddess Dressing (Dairy Free!)

This herby green goddess dressing is a creamy yet bright dairy free sauce that that makes a lovely salad dressing or dip for fresh veggies! It comes together in just 10 minutes or less using a blender or food processor, and will instantly add a boost of flavor to whatever type of meal you include it in! Made with just 8 fresh ingredients, including mayo (plus dairy free milk) instead of sour cream or greek yogurt for a lush sauce that you’ll want to drizzle on everything.

A delightfully creamy dairy free green goddess dressing to perk up everything from salads to snack spreads

I never underestimate the power of a phenomenal sauce to give lunch or dinner a serious flavor upgrade!

And when that sauce is made with an array of zippy and herbaceous ingredients like this green goddess dressing is, the vibes are impeccable.

Plus, the whole fresh-and-fast factor of a recipe like this means that it only takes about 10 minutes or less to elevate any meal.

Our personal favorite way to use it? In this Perfect Spring Salad!

To make this recipe dairy free, I relied on a simple combination of mayonnaise + dairy free milk instead of sour cream or greek yogurt. This keeps the dressing positively smooth and creamy, and maintains a lovely bit of irresistible tang!

Traditionally, green goddess dressing is made with tarragon and anchovies, but I made a couple of simple swaps for those ingredients to cater to our personal preferences that I think you’ll love, too!

Basil instead of tarragon

During the summer months we have access to, or have basil already around the house more frequently than tarragon.

I also prefer its sweet and herbaceous flavor over tarragon, so for my version of this sauce I made made the simple swap between the two herbs, and the result is absolutely fabulous.

Capers instead of anchovies

While anchovies are delicious in green goddess dressing, it’s not an ingredient we often have on hand and not everyone is a fan.

Capers on the other hand, we almost always have stashed in our refrigerator. And while they provide the same touch of salty + umami rich flavor for depth, they’re a bit milder in character.

If you love an herby sauce as much as we do, be sure to peek at our recipes for Avocado Herb Green Sauce, 5-Minute Dairy Free Ranch Dressing with Fresh Herbs, and Homemade Basil Pesto!

Key ingredients

🌿 Fresh herbs, bright lemon juice, garlic, and capers combined with a creamy backdrop of mayo and dairy free milk make this lovely dressing absolutely SHINE. Sometimes it really is the simplest of staple ingredients that make the best-tasting recipes!

Fresh herbs

No green goddess dressing would be complete without the herbs that give it such a lovely green color.

This recipe brings together an exceptional combination of basil, parsley, and fresh chives for some serious swoon-worthy flavor.

Fresh lemon juice

Freshly squeezed lemon juice is always better than its bottled counterpart for truly bright and zippy flavor!

All you need for this dressing is 2 tablespoons, so just one lemon should be sufficient.

Capers

Used instead of anchovies, capers add just the smallest bit of briny zip to the dressing that’s the perfect compliment to the other ingredients.

The amount used is pretty small, so they could be skipped if you don’t have any on hand – but I highly recommend including them if you can!

How to make this creamy green goddess dressing in less than 10 minutes!

The reason this dressing only takes 10 minutes (or less!) to make? Your blender or food processor is going to do all the work for you!

And because you’re throwing all the ingredients into the same container to process, you only have to roughly (read: imperfectly 😂) chop up the herbs and garlic before you pulse them all together.

👉🏼 A note on blender containers: I have two Vitamix blenders. One is the low profile, wider style, and the other is the more traditional tall + skinny blender container (like you see in the photos below). I always find that when blending up smaller amounts of ingredients for a sauce like this that the tall and skinner container does a much better job at properly incorporating the ingredients together. If all you have is the wide style container, I’d recommend using a food processor instead if that option is available to you! A small personal size blender would also work well.

The only two steps involved in making this dressing are:

1. Adding all of the ingredients to your blender.
2. Blending until smooth and creamy!

After that you can adjust the salt and pepper to your personal preference, and either serve right away or refrigerate until you’re ready to use it.

The dressing will noticeably thicken after a few hours in the refrigerator.

Serving suggestions

Using this sauce as a salad dressing is the most obvious option (& it truly does make the best herb-forward creamy salad dressing!), but there’s so many other delicious ways you could put it to use.

It makes an amazing dip for fresh cut veggies, can be drizzled over grilled or roasted vegetables or protein, & would also be BRILLIANT in a rice + protein bowl!

If you enjoyed this dairy free dressing we’d love it if you would take a moment to rate and review it below! 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 It’s also a good place for questions, and super helpful for other readers if you share any modifications you made to the recipe. 

Thank you for sharing your kitchen with NK. We’re so grateful you’re here!

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