Creamy Avocado Salad Dressing

Creamy Avocado Dressing is what you make when you want a creamy salad dressing without the guilt of mayonnaise or tons of oil! Like a cross between pourable Guacamole and Avocado Dipping Sauce, this healthy creamy dressing works with leafy greens or sturdier vegetables like green beans (pictured).

Creamy Avocado Dressing

This is a dressing that uses avocado to make it creamy, rather than mayonnaise or loads of oil. It doesn’t taste very avocado-ey because avocados are dense so it needs to be thinned out to make it pourable as a dressing.

Rather, think of the avocado as a better-for-you means to get a creamy dressing fix!

Excellent use for avocados that are a bit overripe or with brown spotty bits that don’t look appealing enough to use in salads. Use it as dressing for all your favourite salads – it’s particularly good salads that call for Ranch, Caesar or other mayo-rich dressings.

What you need

Here’s what you need for this creamy, healthy avocado dressing:

• Avocado – one that’s ripe and creamy!

• Yogurt (or sour cream) – for an extra hit of creamy (without the guilt of mayo) plus tang;

• Lemon juice – the tang;

• Extra virgin olive oil – to add some richness to the Dressing. Without it, it’s a bit too “watery”;

• Garlic – flavour!

• Water – to thin the dressing. Avocado is very dense! It actually needs quite a bit of thinning to make it pourable – about 6 tablespoons of water for half an avocado.

Flavouring Options

The plain dressing is delicious as is, and also a great base to add flavour. Here are some suggestions:

• Ranch – add 1/4 tsp EACH dried dill, parsley, chives, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, black pepper, plus 1/2 tsp white sugar

• Mexican / South Western – use lime instead of lemon, add 1/4 cup coriander/cilantro leaves, 1.5 tbsp chopped red onion, 1/4 tsp cumin powder

• Fresh herbs – 1/4 cup chopped parsley, dill, coriander/cilantro, chives (any combo you choose)

• Coriander/dill – 1.5 tbsp each coriander and cilantro (wonderful flavour combo)

• Extra lemony – add the zest of 1 lemon

• Greek – add 2 tsp dried oregano and a squeeze of extra lemon (use for Greek Salad!)

• Italian – add 1.5 tsp mixed dried Italian herbs (or use a combo of parsley, oregano, red pepper, basil)

• Dried herbs – use 1.5 tsp dried herb mix of choice

How to make Creamy Avocado Dressing

Here’s how it’s made – plonk and blitz!

I use my Nutribullet for dressings and small batch things I blitz. One of the best value kitchen investments I’ve made. (Truth be told, I got it to make cocktails…. but now I use it practically every day for smoothies, pesto, curry pastes, dressings. So much easier to clean than blenders and food processors!)

Best Salads for Creamy Avocado Dressing

Use this Avocado Dressing for anything you’d dress with a creamy dressing – like Ranch, Caesar, creamy mayo dressings like used for Coleslaw. So – fresh leafy salads, cold cooked vegetables (I can’t imagine it with hot vegetables – someone could prove me wrong?), juicy fresh vegetables like tomato and cucumber are ideal.

It’s pictured above in a Green Bean Avocado Saladwhich is a copycat of a salad sold at an Aussie charcoal chicken chain called Chargrill Charlie’s. It was a reader request – they love it, but it’s darn pricey ($7 for a small tub!), and given they have a store in my suburb, I just popped in to get a sample, then copied it.

And it didn’t cost much more than $7 to make a giant bowl of this!! MUCH cheaper than buying it! 🙂 – Nagi x

Watch how to make it

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Creamy Avocado Dressing

Author: Nagi

Prep: 5 mins

Side Salad

Western

5 from 2 votes

Servings8

Tap or hover to scale

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Recipe video above. This is a dressing that uses avocado to make it creamy, rather than mayonnaise or loads of oil. It doesn't taste very avocado-ey because avocados are dense so it needs to be thinned out to make it pourable as a dressing. Rather, think of the avocado as the better-for-you means to get a creamy dressing fix!

Excellent use for avocados that are a bit overripe or with brown spotty bits. Use as dressing for all your favourite salads. Particularly good salads that call for Ranch, Caesar or other mayo-rich dressings.

Makes 1 1/4 cups - enough for a side salad for 6 to 8 (depending on how much you use!)

Ingredients

Creamy Avocado Dressing:

• ▢ 1/2 cup ripe avocado (smush into cup to measure, or estimate - 1/2 medium avo)
• ▢ 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• ▢ 3 tbsp sour cream or yogurt (Greek or plain, unsweetened) - OPTIONAL (Note 1)
• ▢ 2 tbsp lemon juice
• ▢ 1 garlic clove, small , minced using garlic crusher (Note 2)
• ▢ 4 tbsp water (to thin out, it's very rich!)
• ▢ 1/2 tsp salt
• ▢ 1/4 tsp black pepper

EXTRA FLAVOURING OPTIONS:

• ▢ See Note 3

Instructions

• Place all ingredients into a Nutribullet or small food processor and blitz until smooth. (Inc Extra Flavouring Options)
• Use water to thin to just pourable consistency (so it's not super gloopy and thick).
• Taste and add the following to taste: salt, pepper, lemon, oil. Use as salad dressing!
• Keeps 3 days in the fridge without going brown. See Note 3 for how to keep even longer!

Recipe Notes:

1. Sour cream or yogurt - adds bit of fresh creaminess to this dressing. Still very tasty without. 

2. Garlic - best to use a garlic crusher because it makes the minced garlic "juicy" which is perfect for dressings (rather than minced using a knife - garlic pieces are dry - this is perfect for high heat cooking like stir fries).

3. Flavouring options:

• Mexican / South Western - use lime instead of lemon, add 1/4 cup coriander/cilantro leaves, 1.5 tbsp chopped red onion, 1/4 tsp cumin powder
• Fresh herbs - 1/4 cup chopped parsley, dill, coriander/cilantro, chives (any combo you choose)
• Coriander/dill - 1.5 tbsp each coriander and cilantro (wonderful flavour combo)
• Ranch - add 1/4 tsp EACH dried dill, parsley, chives, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, black pepper, plus 1/2 tsp white sugar
• Extra lemony - add the zest of 1 lemon
• Greek - add 2 tsp dried oregano and a squeeze of extra lemon (use for Greek Salad!)
• Italian - add 1.5 tsp mixed dried Italian herbs (or use a combo of parsley, oregano, red pepper, basil)
• Dried herbs - use 1.5 tsp dried herb mix of choice

4. Storage - keeps for 3 days in the fridge, won't go brown. (Only reason I wouldn't keep for longer is the fresh garlic in the dressing - if you exclude or sub with 1/4 tsp dried garlic powder, it should be good for up to 5 days).

5. Nutrition per serving.

Nutrition Information:

Calories: 71cal (4%)Carbohydrates: 1gProtein: 1g (2%)Fat: 8g (12%)Saturated Fat: 1g (6%)Cholesterol: 2mg (1%)Sodium: 150mg (7%)Potassium: 52mg (1%)Fiber: 1g (4%)Sugar: 1g (1%)Vitamin A: 42IU (1%)Vitamin C: 2mg (2%)Calcium: 5mg (1%)Iron: 1mg (6%)

Keywords: avocado recipe, Avocado salad dressing, healthy creamy dressing

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