A delicious, homemade Vegan Oil-free Creamy Italian Dressing that is vegan, raw, dairy-free and soy-free! So good you will never need store-bought again! Made with cashews, red wine vinegar and Italian dried herbs and ready in 5 minutes!
VEGAN OIL-FREE CREAMY ITALIAN DRESSING
I don’t eat salads very often, I’m more of a rice, beans and potato eater. However, I DO love salads when I do eat them and I love to load them up and drizzle on some amazing, creamy and bold-flavored dressing all over it. Most salad dressings are so loaded with oil, it’s rather gross. This Vegan Oil-Free Creamy Italian Dressing will not have you missing the oil one bit.
HEALTHY AND OIL-FREE SALAD DRESSING
This dressing was a reader request for her son who loves Italian dressing, but of course, consuming the oil versions are unhealthy. This one is not only oil-free, but it’s made from healthy ingredients and all plant-based, as well as raw. Learn all of my oil-free tips at How to Cook and Bake Without Oil. Using raw cashews gives it the creamy factor and red wine vinegar and lemon juice give it that signature tart flavor. I added dry yellow mustard powder, Italian dried seasoning, pepper, paprika, garlic powder, salt and just a small touch of syrup to help balance out the acidity. The result is a creamy, deeply-flavored and amazing.
HOW TO MAKE VEGAN CREAMY ITALIAN DRESSING
It only takes 5 minutes to make this oil-free Italian dressing. You will just blend the raw cashews with the Italian herbs, spices, lemon juice, red wine vinegar, syrup, water and salt/pepper and boom, done. While it sure is delicious straight out of the blender, the true flavor is best after it has chilled and settled in the fridge for a bit. It reaches it’s optimum flavor that way and thickens even more.
It couldn’t be easier either, you only need 8 ingredients (+ s&p and water):
- raw cashews
- red wine vinegar
- lemon juice
- maple syrup or agave
- garlic powder
- dry yellow mustard
- paprika
- Italian seasoning
I hope you all love this Vegan Oil-Free Creamy Italian Dressing! Be sure to leave me feedback below after you make it and if you take a pic, I’d love to see it on Instagram or Facebook!
OTHER VEGAN OIL-FREE DRESSINGS RECIPES TO TRY:
- Best Vegan Ranch Dressing
- Vegan Thousand Island Dressing
- Almond Butter Dressing
- Vegan Caesar Dressing
Vegan Oil-Free Creamy Italian Dressing
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup (112g) raw, unsalted cashews (While I prefer the flavor with all cashews, for a lower fat version, you can sub half white beans and half cashews, but I would not recommend all beans or it really does change the taste/texture)
- 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons (150g) water
- 3 tablespoons (45g) red wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon (15g) fresh lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon maple syrup or agave (use 2 teaspoons for less acidic flavor)
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/4 teaspoon dry yellow mustard powder
- 1/4 teaspoon paprika
- 1 tbsp + 1/4 teaspoon to add after blending dried Italian seasoning blend without salt or red pepper (I use McCormick brand)
- scant 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
Instructions
- If you do not have a high powered blender, then you will need to soak your cashews for 8-12 hours, the longer the better. Drain and rinse, then proceed with the recipe. They may not get 100% smooth in a regular blender and I find blending in a food processor (if you don't have a Vitamix/Blendtec) gets things smoother than a standard blender.
- Add all of the ingredients to a high powered blender (I use a Vitamix) and blend until completely smooth and creamy. I found the flavor to be perfect, but if you want more tart, then add a bit more lemon or red wine vinegar. Keep in mind, that the flavor reaches it's true taste after chilling, as well as thickens even more. Stir in the remaining 1/4 teaspoon Italian dried herbs.
- Chill in the fridge a minimum of an hour and then enjoy! When is sits overnight in the fridge, it will thicken up to the consistency of a dip, you can leave as is or add just a tiny bit of water to thin.
Brandi, I do have a question about the recipe as far as nutritional info and number of portions go. On the 6 week aggressive weight loss diet I am on by Dr. Fuhrman, I can have 1 ounce of nuts a day. So I wanted to know how many nuts per portion.
I did sub 1/2 white beans for half of the nuts but wanted to know if you had the nutritional info on this? Otherwise, I will just wait until I make it again and calculate how many portions and the calories in the cashews. Thanks.
Try sunflower seeds. They work just s well.
Hi Brandi, just wondering ,I have unsalted raw cashew butter by Artisan. Wouldnt I just be able to use that instead of blending my own cashews?
Yes, that should work fine, just use the same gram weight amount, which would equal to 7 tablespoons.
This sounds delicious. I love that there are no oil as I’m cutting it out completely. Not just for me but for the sake of my husband’s health. Do you have a measurement on how much this yields? I prep big salads for us for the week and would like to know if I should double it or at least add a half.
Hi Tiffany! This makes about 1 1/2 cups!
This dressing is SO delicious! I messed up and used yellow mustard instead of dry yellow mustard powder but it was still so good. I cooked dinner for some friends and they loved this salad dressing too and asked me for the recipe! Thank you! 🙂
So wonderful to hear!
Thanks for the recipe.
I love cashews in all kind of sauces and dressings.
I didn’t have the red wine vinegar or mustard powder or dried Italian herbs. Used some balsamic and rice vinegar, a touch of Dijon and fresh basil and oregano from my garden.
Delicious! Thanks!
Hi Brandi,
I love all your recipes. I made a YouTube on salad dressings. I linked to your account. Your cookbook has been a blessing to me, I wanted to share it with others, this is a new thing for me. My family loves this salad dressing! ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojhU4e2_x_Q
Thank you so much Bev! So honored to hear that!
Wow! I can’t believe how spot on this is. Delicious. Thank you for the recipe!
So happy you loved it Lashay!
Yay, that is awesome, thank you!
I made 1/3 recipe in my Vitamix cup. It was very easy and very delicious. It actually turned out better than I expected. We will definitely make this again. Thanks for posting it.
Hi, I loved the dressing. I’ll make it all the time, but what is the nutritional information?
This is delicious. It is great drizzled over roasted potatoes. Today I used it instead of mayo on a tomato sandwich. This will definitely be added into rotation. Thank you!
Very creamy and tasty.
Glad you enjoyed it Rene!
I’ve been searching for an oil free Italian dressing for a LONG time. I stumbled onto this recipe when, in a hurry to get a late dinner on the table, I truly opened the first thing that my search popped up for me. Not expecting to love it, but simply hoping to not choke on it, I was, in short, stunned by how much myself and the entire family (young kids, ya’ll!) tore our salads up! Thank you for creating this delectable addition to my vegan, oil-free menu repertoire!
Awww yay, so glad to hear this Jack!
I tweaked it a little bit I didn’t have red wine vinegar so I used Apple cider vinegar and instead of maple syrup or agave I used a pinch of Stevia sweetener. And instead of the dry yellow mustard I used Grey Poupon I thought it was delicious. ThankYou for the recipe.
I have tried many oil free dressing recipes and none really did it for me. Until this one. I about fell over when I tasted it. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!
Woohoo love hearing this!!
I’m always looking for oil free dressings. This one is so delicious and you can change the herbs or use fresh ones if you have them. Thank you for a great recipe. I made a batch for salads for the week.
So happy you loved it Anu!
Since your use cashews there is fat and I need to eat lowfat as well as no oil so what is the fat content if using all cashews? Thanks
LOVED IT 🙂
I made this as instructed except substituted apple cider vinegar for red wine and honey for maple syrup. I omitted the lemon juice because I was out. It was delicious to me before chilling. Can’t wait to try it after chilling. Thank you!
So awesome Cindy!