Vegan Mexican Ranch Dressing

Almost every Sunday, we have a family dinner with my mother-in-law.  Sunday night dinners were a tradition even before I was part of the family.

In late June, we hosted my mother-in-law, Hubby’s aunt, Hubby’s cousin, and Hubby’s cousin’s son.  Hubby’s cousin is vegan.  The rest of the family are not vegans so it was going to be a challenge to make dinner.  I was up for that challenge.

My mother-in-law suggested I have a taco salad bar so that people could choose what they wanted on their tacos. My kids and S. like carrots and celery so I also had that with homemade hummus.  We also had homemade brownies and Vegan turtle walnut brownies for dessert.

Hubby loves ranch dressing on his tacos.  Weird I know.  He doesn’t like sour cream so this is his alternative to sour cream.  I decided to make a vegan ranch dressing for our Sunday dinner.  Hubby loved it.  In fact, he ate some of the ground beef taco meat with some of this ranch dressing for his second helping of food.

This ranch dressing uses cashews instead of sour cream and milk as it’s base.

We used the remaining ranch dressing for our Monterrey chicken quesadillas.  YUM!

Vegan Mexican Ranch Dressing

Stars of the recipe:

• ¾ c. raw cashews, soaked for 1 to 2 hours if you don’t have a high power blender
• ½ c. water
• 2 Tbsp. lemon juice (1 lemon – microwave for 10 seconds to maximize the amount of lemon juice.)
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 Tbsp. white wine vinegar
• ½ tsp. Onion powder
• ½ tsp. Oregano
• ½ Tbsp. dried dill
• ½ Tbsp. dried chives
• ½ tsp. Salt
• 1 tsp. Cumin
• ½ tsp. Smoked paprika

Steps:

1. Blend all the ingredients.  
2. Add 1 Tbsp. of water at a time, if needed, until the dressing is the consistency you desire.
3. Enjoy within 4 days.

Printable Recipe

Happy eating,
Traci

(Adapted from Veggie Inspired Journey)