Cashew Cream Sauce - Salad Dressing Base

I wanted both cashew cream sauce and salad dressing last night, so I made a base that could go either way. Starting with this cashew cream sauce recipe, I put it all together except for the nutritional yeast. Also didn’t add any water but you may need to depending on how well everything is blending together.

For the dressing, I separated 1/2 cup of the base and added 1/2 cup vinegar. With that much vinegar on top of the lemon juice, it packs a punch. I like it that way. You may need to adjust accordingly. Perhaps a 1/3 vinegar to 2/3 base combination.

I finished off the cream sauce with water and nutritional yeast and poured that into a container. After I rinsed out the blender, I poured in the dressing mixture and blended in 1/2 banana.

And that’s it. Pasta sauce and salad dressing done at the same time. This dressing - without any avocado - lasts 3-4 weeks.

Cashew Cream Sauce - Updated

This recipe is best if you have a mega-blender or a food processor. It can probably be done in a regular blender though you may get a more chunky sauce.

I’ve made several versions and posted some here. Today’s is my favorite, by far. Ingredient list first and then I’ll walk through the order that may be easiest.

Ingredients:

Juice of 1 Lemon

1 Zucchini - peeled and chopped

1-2 Carrots - peeled and chopped - yellow preferred but not required

1/3 medium yellow Onion

3-4 cloves Garlic

3 oz raw, unsalted Cashews

3/4 cup Nutritional Yeast

Salt & Black Pepper to taste (1/4 tsp @ as a suggestion)

Water as needed

If you’re using a regular blender, soak the cashews in water overnight so they soften for easier blending. Drain before adding them to the recipe. If your carrots are on the small side, then use two. Yellow carrots are preferred simply due to the effect on the final color of the sauce.

Put the lemon juice in first, then add the zucchini. If you notice lemon seeds have jumped into your blender, try to fish them out before adding the zucchini. Blend on low so the zucchini won’t hop away from the blades. It doesn’t have to be blended completely yet. Add a little water to help - probably less than 1/8 cup. 

Add the carrots, blend a little more, but this time work up to high briefly. Add the onion and garlic, salt and pepper. Blend all of this on high until it’s smooth. It should be fairly thin.

Add the cashews and the nutritional yeast. Work up to high slowly when blending so the yeast gets pulled into the mixture instead of decorating the inside of the lid. Blend on high until smooth.

At any point that it seems this will not blend nicely, try a tamper or add a little water.

If it’s too thin at the end, add more cashews and/or nutritional yeast. If it’s too thick, add more water or lemon juice.

Salad Dressing Basics

I’ve tinkered with the recipes a few times now and have found what works for me. The base of the dressing is a vinegar, an oil in the form of avocado and/or nuts, an optional sweetener (banana, dates), and water to achieve the desired consistency. The additions can vary pretty widely.

For some dressings, the vinegar/water measurements are: 1/2 cup vinegar, 1 cup water. When the mixture is thicker, then the measurements become: 1 cup vinegar, 2 cups water - especially if you have avocado, nuts, and banana in the recipe. Some vinegars may overwhelm the flavors if there’s more than a 1/2 cup. Lemon juice could be used instead of a vinegar as well.

In general the water is twice the vinegar.

Base:

1/2 cup Vinegar

1 cup Water

1/2 cup raw, unsalted Nuts (cashews, walnuts, etc) - optional

1 Avocado

1 Banana - optional

Equipment choices and preparation: If you have a Vita-Mix, food processor, or equivalent, then you can thoroughly blend in most ingredients. If you’re using a standard blender, some ingredients would work better with a little prep. Nuts may need to be soaked overnight to soften them for blending. Carrots will most likely make a chunkier dressing, but it’s not the end of the world. People often put carrots on salad. Onion, garlic, and harder veggies like carrots may need to be chopped before being added to the blender.

For the flavor profile, it depends on what you wish. I like to add zucchini and carrots to give it more depth of flavor and add more veggies to my day.

Zesty dressing:

1 peeled Zucchini

2 peeled Carrots

2 tsp chopped Garlic or 3-4 cloves Garlic

1/4 yellow Onion

1/2 tsp Salt

1/4 tsp Pepper

Mustard dressing:

(I’ve made this with Amy’s German mustard but not yet with the mustard seed)

4-5 tbl prepared Mustard or 1-2 tbl ground Mustard Seed

1 Banana (extra sweetener for the Honey Mustard idea)

Salt and Pepper to taste - optional

Balsamic dressing:

(contains sulfites)

For this dressing, I added nuts, avocado, and banana so the base had 1 cup Vinegar and 2 cups Water

2 tsp chopped Garlic or 3-4 cloves Garlic

Salt and Pepper to taste - optional

Fruit dressing:

(I haven’t tried this yet, but here are my thoughts of what this would look like)

5-6 oz Fruit - could be frozen or fresh

Banana or Apple to taste - depending on the sour/sweet aspect of the fruit

Salt and Pepper to taste - optional

Because the oil is also a thickener, these generally don’t separate. The fruit one might because some fruits like to do that.

These dressings last about 1 week.

Mustard Salad Dressing

1 Avocado

2 Bananas

½ cup Apple Cider Vinegar

1 ½ cups Water

4-5 tbl Amy’s German Mustard (or other mustard you like)

4 oz (~1 cup) raw Cashews

Blend

The Amy’s mustard has apple cider vinegar, so it should be safe if you can do ACV. If not, maybe use rice vinegar and skip the prepared mustards. Instead add ground mustard to taste - maybe 1-2 tbl. You might also need some salt and pepper if you go the ground mustard route.

Salad Dressing

I played with two different versions of a salad dressing. The first one was probably too heavy on the vinegar and it contained oil. When poured on salad, the vinegar taste was diminished enough to be quite enjoyable. If I make that particular one again, I’ll cut the amount of vinegar in half and leave out the oil.

The second recipe came from the desire to play with a new acquisition - ginger juice - and an avocado that was at the use it or lose it stage.

Nut Free: Because both the avocado and the cashews add the creamy consistency, the cashews are optional. Cut back on the initial amount of water and then add as needed for the desired consistency.

Ingredients for recipe 1

1 cup ACV

1/4 cup Olive Oil

1/2 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Pepper

2 very small Zucchini

2 yellow Carrots

1 small Avocado

2 tsp chopped Garlic

1/4 yellow Onion

1/2 cup raw, unsalted Cashews

Water to achieve desired consistency

Ingredients for recipe 2

1/2 cup ACV

1 cup Water (more later if needed to achieve desired consistency)

1/2 cup raw, unsalted Cashews

1/2 tsp Salt (I added a little bit more at the end to brighten the flavor)

1/2 tsp Pepper

1 Avocado

1/2 tbl chopped Garlic

2 tbl Ginger Juice (or other desired flavoring)

Put everything in the blender and blend on high until creamy. This may require adding more water to allow the blender to keep going strong. I used the dry container on the Vita-Mix to help get the cashews well macerated. If your blender is not up to macerating nuts, I suggest soaking them in water or ACV to soften them up first.

I’m a big fan of strong flavors. If mild is more your style, cut the amount of ginger juice down to 1 tablespoon. Once this is on salad though, it should lose more of the flavor’s strength. 

This lasts roughly 1 week in the fridge.

Carrot Hot Dogs

Just heard about these Carrot Dogs and they look good.

https://www.peta.org/living/food/carrot-hot-dog-recipe/

Personally, I would skip the liquid smoke (carcinogenic) and replace the soy sauce with tamari (no wheat). To cut out the soy, maybe use salt instead. If sulfites don’t bother you, try a little balsamic vinegar. Sometimes figuring out what tastes you fancy and creating a marinade based on that is your best bet.

The bun is another story altogether. Something to think about for a future recipe.

Green Cashew Cream Sauce

We’re out of zucchini and I wanted a pasta sauce, plus I needed breakfast smoothies for this week. 

First I made an unsweetened cashew oat milk.

1 cup raw, unsalted Cashews

1 cup gluten-free Rolled Oats

6 cups water

Blend this on high in a Vita-Mix liquid container for 3 minutes to cook the oats. This can be done on the stovetop. Check the links here for vegan milk to find the stovetop directions link. That might mean making the oat milk first and then adding the cashews in the next step below.

I poured the milk into another container and then started on the cashew cream sauce in the Vita-Mix.

2 cups unsweetened Cashew/Oat Milk (see above)

1/2 pkg frozen Spinach (~8 oz)

3 peeled Carrots

Blend this on high until smooth. Add in -

1/2 medium Yellow Onion

4 cloves Garlic

2 tbl Apple Cider Vinegar

1/2 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Pepper

Blend this on high until smooth. Add in -

1 cup Nutritional Yeast

Blend on medium or whatever it takes to get the mixture spinning. If you want a creamier texture, add more cashews.

The rest of the milk became smoothies by adding the other 1/2 pkg of spinach and a bunch of different fruits.