Oil Free Vegan Creamy Italian Dressing! Creamy dressing + Italian flavors = a salad’s dream!
Brimming with rich flavors, this healthy Oil Free Vegan Creamy Italian Dressing is packed with delicious plant based ingredients. Decadent cashews, zippy vinegars, and aromatic spices come together in a tantalizing dressing that you’ll want to pour over everything; from salads, sandwiches, baked potatoes, roasted veggies, and more; you’ll have a perfectly satisfying meal!
Whole Food Plant Based, Vegan, plant based, oil free, refined sugar free, no highly processed ingredients and gluten free.
Ameera here!
As you know, we LOVE salads and in order to make our salads super yummy, we strive to make delicious salad dressings! This one is one for the books!
You gotta give this one a try!
Tips for Success:
- Flavor Profile: The flavor profile of this dressing is a beautifully creamy, zippy homemade Italian dressing with healthy ingredients.
- Herbs/Spices: Do not blend the herbs (basil, oregano, thyme, Italian Seasoning, parsley) or the dressing will change to a light shade of green. We blended all the ingredients except the green herbs, then just pulsed those in to keep the color integrity.
- Amounts of Herbs/Spices: You can easily ramp up your favorite herbs and spices in this dressing to achieve the desired flavor. If you find you are adding a lot of herbs, allow the dressing to sit for at least 30 minutes to give the herbs a chance to infuse their flavor into the dressing and so you won’t feel like you are chomping on herbs.
- Zippy Flavor: The zippiness of this dressing is easily controlled. Reduce the distilled white vinegar to 2 Tablespoons and the lemon juice to 1 teaspoon. We love the delicious tangy punches from the vinegars. It is also lightly creamy from the cashews. If you find that the dressing is too zippy, simply add a splash of water and allow it to sit in the refrigerator. It will thicken up quickly and you can add additional water to thin it out again, if needed.
- Refrigerating Cashew Based Dressings: Cashew based dressings tend to thicken over time and especially in the refrigerator. You can always thin out thickened dressings with a little splash of vinegar or water.
- Taste Testing Salad Dressings: There is an art to arriving at the salad dressing that perfectly suits your tastes. The best way to test salad dressings is to place a few leaves of lettuce (or other greens) in a tiny bowl, put a tiny bit of the salad dressing over top and mix really well, then taste test. Some salad dressings taste amazing before you dress the salad, then once dressing the salad, the salad falls flat. That is because the salad dressing has to cover all the salad ingredients which then flattens the flavor of the dressing. Additionally, some salad dressings taste really tangy or overly strong before dressing the salad, but once you dress the salad, it coats all the ingredients and tastes amazing.
- Cashew Substitutions: You may wish to try our Oil Free Italian Hummus Dressing, Italian Sundried Tomato Dressing or our Oil Free Italian Parmesan Dressing, all of which are nut free.
- Salad Photo Ingredients: Mixed greens, cooked pasta, navy beans, roasted beets, grape tomatoes, chopped red bell peppers, chopped cucumbers, ribboned carrots, sprinkled with Italian seasoning (for aesthetics.)
Leftovers and Freezing:
Leftovers will generally keep for 7 days in the refrigerator. Store in a covered container.
This dressing cannot be frozen.
Pantry Products Used:
- Dried Thyme Crushed Leaves: If you can’t find dried crushed thyme leaves, you can use ground thyme, but use half the amount.
- Sea Salt: Please adjust the sea salt based upon your family’s sea salt preferences and/or based upon dietary needs.
Kitchen Products Used:
- High-speed blender
If you try this bold salad, we would love to know if you enjoy it as much as we do! Please leave us a review! Post a picture on Facebook or Instagram and tag us! We would love to hear from you.
PrintOil Free Vegan Creamy Italian Dressing
- Prep Time: 15 Minutes
- Total Time: 15 Minutes
- Yield: 1 Cup 1x
- Category: Dressing, Salads
- Diet: Vegan
Description
Brimming with rich flavors, this healthy Oil Free Vegan Creamy Italian Dressing is packed with delicious plant based ingredients.
Ingredients
Base Ingredients:
- 1/3 cup (raw) cashews
- 2 to 4 Tablespoons distilled white vinegar *
- ¼ cup red wine vinegar *
- ¼ cup water
- 1 to 2 teaspoons lemon juice *
- 1 Tablespoon pure maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 Tablespoon dried minced onions
- ¼ cup nutritional yeast
- ¼ to ¾ teaspoon sea salt (+/-) *
Spice/Herb Ingredients:
- ½ teaspoon dried oregano
- ½ teaspoon dried basil
- ½ teaspoon Italian seasoning
- ½ teaspoon dried parsley
- ¼ teaspoon dried crushed thyme leaves *
- Pinch celery seed (optional)
Instructions
- Place the cashews into a small bowl, cover with boiling water, set aside for 10 minutes to soften. After 10 minutes, discard the water, set aside.
- Place the Spice/Herb Ingredients into a small bowl, whisk to mix, set aside.
- Place the all the Base Ingredients and soaked cashews into a high-speed blender, blend on high until smooth and emulsified.
- Place the Spice/Herb Ingredients into the high-speed blender, pulse once or twice just to mix in the herbs. Do not blend.
- Taste test the dressing, adjust the flavors as needed.
Notes
*Please reference the blog post for Tips for Success, Pantry Items Used, Storage and Freezing, and Kitchen Products Used.
*Sea Salt: Please adjust the sea salt based upon your family’s sea salt preferences and/or based upon dietary needs.
*Servings: Makes one cup of dressing
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This dressing is absolutely incredible!!!!
Hi there Suzanne,
YAYYYY!!!! We are thrilled that you enjoyed this dressing.
Thank you so much for taking time to leave us an awesome review.
-Ameera and Robin
Thank you. This dressings is my mother’s favorite. Your recipes are always wonderful and quick!!! I really appreciate your efforts.💕
Hi there Naba,
YAYYYY!!! We are so happy that this recipe is one of your mother’s favorite. Thank you so much for leaving us an awesome review.
-Ameera and Robin
This is my new rave, fave, go to dressing for my daily giant salad! So simple, so filled with incredible flavors. I love it!
Hi there Kathleen,
YAYYY!!! We are thrilled that this recipe is a new rave, fave, go to dressing!!! Thank you so much for taking time to leave a great review.
-Ameera and Robin