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.
Hands down the best salad dressing I’ve made!!! I recently began incorporating salad into my plant based diet and tested several other oil-free recipes before trying this. Not single one of the others came close to its non-vegan counterpart. But your creamy Italian is SPOT ON!!! I tasted it straight out the blender and my only disappointment was that I had to wait an hour to let it cool in the fridge and thicken 😂 I absolutely love this recipe. THANK YOU
This makes me so happy to hear Tae, thank you!!
Do you think walnuts could work? Son has a cashew allergy.
Hi Katherine, I would suggest sunflower kernels instead of walnuts as I think walnuts will be too overpowering in flavor.
Wow! Just Wow! Very pleasantly surprised how great tasting this dressing is. I was low on red wine vinegar, so it ended up half red half white wine vinegar. Perfecto! Thank you. Wow, just fabulous!
How did you make the salad in the photo,it looks absolutely delicious and I can only imagine this sauce makes it even better!
Do you think apple cider vinegar would work?
Unfortunately not here, it is too strong for this dressing. The red wine is the best option!
This dressing is so good I could eat it with a spoon! I used it with a salad made with chopped broccoli, chopped raw almonds, chopped red onion, and halved red grapes (combined and chilled). Delicious! Your recipes are ALWAYS good, Brandi.
One word: stellar!
I made this dressing for my husband and he loved it.
Thanks Brandi!! Another keeper Delicious!!
Just made this now, ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS! How long will it last in the fridge?
Yay! A week or so! Freeze for longer!
I’ll have to say, that was great. I drizzled it on my baked potato with broccoli, onions, peppers, garlic, mushrooms, it was delicious. Thank you!!!
This was amazing! I didn’t use as many cashews as the recipe stated, as I wanted to cut down on the fat content a tad, but it was still absolutely delicious! Better than any store bought italian vegan or not! I have also tried this with sunflower seeds, and it comes out great too! This is a new staple for me. Thank you, Brandi!!
Hi Brandi. This salad dressing is amazing. I used sunflower seeds since my son cannot have cashews. We absolutely loved it we added two teaspoons of maple syrup and did not use the extra 1/4 teaspoon of Italian seasoning after blending. It was already perfect as is. This creamy Italian dressing is a game changer! Thank you thank you! How long do you think it would be good for in the refrigerator because want to triple the recipe! This dressing is the best!
I love this recipe! I did 1/2 cashews 1/2 northern white beans. I speed up the soaking of the cashews by putting them in the microwave. This is a fabulous and delicious salad dressing! I’m always on the lookout for oil free salad dressing recipes!
Really happy to hear that!
Hi Brandi,
The Italian dressing recipe sounds so good and I’m looking forward to making it. However, the third to last ingredient to add 1 Tbsp + 1/4 tsp after blending Italian seasoning and you use McCormick brand…but what is the ingredient? Thanks!
It is explained in step 2. You are adding the 1 tbsp italian seasoning to blend and then stirring in the 1/4 teaspoon seasoning at the end.
This is so delicious! Thank you!!
Thank you for the recipe!!
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!
LOVED IT 🙂
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
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!
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 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’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!
Very creamy and tasty.
Glad you enjoyed it Rene!