Creamy Avocado Salad Dressing

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