Creamy Cilantro Sauce

This cilantro sauce is creamy, tangy, savory, sweet and totally delicious! It’s plant-based and perfect for baked potatoes, tacos, and more.

Try our new favorite sauce: this bright green cilantro sauce. And guess what? It’s also 100% plant-based, so it works for all types of eaters! Alex and I have been using the cashew cream idea to make creamy, dairy-free sauces for a while. It’s just soaked cashews mixed with a little water, but they get so intensely creamy they’re the perfect one-spoon sauce. This splashy green is a big favorite in our household. It’s actually quite mild in coriander flavor: so not even self-confessed coriander haters offensive!

What’s in that cilantro sauce?

For this recipe for creamy cilantro sauce you will need the following ingredients:

• Raw or roasted cashew nuts (unsalted)
• lime juice
• Coriander leaves and stems
• Salt

Look for unsalted cashews. If all you can find is salty, simply add half the amount of salt in the recipe below, then taste and adjust the salt as needed. Also note that freshly squeezed lime juice gives you the best flavor of this sauce. We’re not big fans of bottled stuff here: it just doesn’t taste right!

How it goes!

This cilantro sauce is based on the concept of cashew cream. what is cashew cream? Cashew cream is a creamy mixture of soaked cashew nuts and water. You can use it in vegan recipes as a dairy-free substitute for sour cream, whipped cream, yogurt, or mayonnaise. This is what makes our Vegan Marinara Pasta Wild Rice Soup (and many of these cashew recipes) so creamy.

This cilantro sauce is basically a cashew cream made with cilantro and lime! How to make coriander sauce

• Soak Cashew Nuts: Soak the cashews for 1 hour (30 minutes if you have a high speed blender). You can also soak them overnight if you think about it, but it’s not necessary. What is easiest for you!
• Add Spices: In a blender, add the drained cashews, coriander, lime, and kosher salt.
• Mixed: Blend until you get a thick, creamy green sauce!

A note on soaking cashew nuts

To dip the cashews for this cilantro sauce, all you have to do is place them in a bowl and cover with water. Then let it rest at room temperature for 1 hour! But you might be wondering:

• Can you soak cashews for less than an hour?? Alex and I tried a few shortcuts. The fewer The time we can spare is 30 minutes, and that’s with our high-performance blender. (It’s harder to work with a standard blender because it’s not as powerful.) We recommend soaking for 1 hour if possible, or try this trick to speed up the soaking time.
• Can cashews be soaked for more than 1 hour? Absolutely! The longer the better for this cashew cilantro sauce. Start soaking the night before and refrigerate in the morning until the cilantro sauce is ready.

Ways to Eat That Cilantro Sauce

There are tons of ways to use this cilantro sauce – and we already have several recipes on our site that use it! Here are some of our favorite ways to eat it:

1. Pour it over fried potatoes as in our Mexican sweet potato recipe! Or it would be delicious on those roasted mashed potatoes.
2. Drizzle over the nachos like our Greek Nachos or our Mexican Nachos with Fried Rice.
3. Use it as a taco sauce like in our vegan tacos with green lentils.
4. Use as a sauce for seafood like our Baked Salmon or Grilled Prawns.

There are many other ways to use this cilantro sauce! What would you use it for?

This recipe for cilantro sauce is…

Vegan, vegetarian, gluten free, plant based, dairy free and refined sugar free.

Looking for more must-have recipes?

From vinaigrette to homemade yum yum sauce, our must-have recipes are easy to make at home! Here are some more of our basic and DIY recipes:

Last update: January 2020