With my bounty of amazing salad greens from my CSA, I’ve been making salads most nights for the next day’s lunch. The other night, I had run out of vinaigrette, and was trying to decide what kind of dressing to make next.
I had just received a a huge amount of dill in that week’s veggie share. I was still wondering what I should do with it. It then occurred to me to use a small amount of it in to a salad dressing. I remember having a great creamy dill dressing. I wanted to recreate it in some way, but I didn’t want it to be the same gloopy dressing. I just wanted some of that flavor.
I’ve noticed that many creamy salad dressings tend to include either a sour cream or buttermilk on the dairy side. On the non-dairy side, I am always seeing mayonaisse in dressings. I didn’t want either of those things.
I wanted something vegan.
I thought about the cashew sauce I made for pasta this winter. The cashew cream brought so much creaminess to the dish. I wondered if I could do something similar with a salad dressing.
I quickly grabbed some cashews out of the freezer and began soaking. I let them soak for about an hour and prepped the other ingredients.
After about an hour, I drained the cashews and placed in my Cuisinart Food Processor along with some shallots, garlic, dill, salt, pepper and water. With the machine running, I then slowly added some olive oil to the mix. This dressing would also work well in a high-powered blender.
I transferred the dressing to a jar. Of course I tried a bit before placing in the fridge to chill for the next day. Delicious! I am definitely going to use cashews more often to add creaminess to dressings!
- ½ cup cashews
- water for soaking
- ½ cup chopped fresh dill
- 1 shallot
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 tsp. salt
- 2 tsp. fresh ground pepper
- ¾ cup water
- 2 tbsp. lemon juice
- ½ cup olive oil
- additional salt and pepper to taste
- Soak the cashews in water to cover for at least an hour.
- Drain and rinse the cashews.
- Place all of the ingredients except for the olive oil in a blender or food processor.
- Process the dressing. Slowly add in the olive oil with the processor or blender going.
- Transfer the dressing to a bottle.
- Store in refrigerator.
- Enjoy!
