This is the easiest vegan ranch dressing recipe. It’s creamy, full of flavor, and completely oil-free! Perfect for salads, vegetables, and sandwiches.
Let’s face it, salads can be a bit boring. But adding creamy salad dressing just seems to make it better.
However, the problem is that most store-bought dressings are usually filled with dairy and oil. And, many of the vegan salad dressing options aren’t any better because they still contain lots of oil and processed ingredients.
BUT, this delicious dairy-free ranch dressing is better than anything you’ll find on the shelf. Unlike many other vegan recipes that tend to use some type of vegan mayonnaise as the base, this one uses only natural, whole-food ingredients. And, it doesn’t taste funny.
So, if you’ve never homemade ranch dressing now is the time! Do yourself a favor and make it NOW!
And, it’s so close to traditional ranch dressing no one will know the difference. So, what are we waiting for? Let’s make Vegan Ranch Dressing!
Ingredients You’ll Need
This vegan ranch dressing recipe is so easy and only takes about 10 minutes. You need 10 simple ingredients and I’d be willing to bet you have most of them.
It’s such a simple dairy-free, healthy, oil-free, and gluten-free recipe.
- Cashews: be sure and use only raw cashews that have not been roasted and contain no salt.
- Dairy-free Milk: unsweetened almond milk, soy milk, oat milk are my choices.
- Acid: apple cider vinegar and lemon juice and that signature tang we all love in ranch dressing. If you don’t have apple cider vinegar you can use white vinegar.
- Spices: 1 teaspoon garlic powder and 1 teaspoon onion powder are all you need for flavor.
- Nutritional Yeast: adds that nutty, cheesy essence characteristic of ranch dressing.
- Herbs: dill and parsely give you that flavor you love.
- Salt: I like to wait until everything has been blended and season with salt to taste at the end.
Is Ranch Vegan Friendly?
Yes, if it’s this recipe. But, ordinarily, no because they are all made with dairy and some type of mayo.
Just because you’ve given up oil and dairy doesn’t mean you have to give up something you love. And, it certainly doesn’t mean you have to give up flavor.
Also, your kids can once again drown their veggies in ranch dressing and you can live guilt-free. And, you’ll be voted favorite parent. You’re welcome.
My absolute favorite way to enjoy this amazing dressing is as a dipping sauce with buffalo cauliflower wings. AH-MAZING!
How To Make Vegan Ranch Dressing
Raw cashews are the perfect base because they’re very neutral in flavor. And, they blend really well to create an amazing super creamy texture.
- Soak cashews in water for 2-4 hours or boil for 5-10 minutes.
- Just before you are ready to drain the cashews, about 5 minutes, add the apple cider vinegar and lemon juice to the milk mix really well. Allow it to sit for just a couple of minutes. You're essentially making vegan buttermilk. This step is not essentially necessary, but I feel it does enhance the overall flavor.
- Drain cashews and add to your blender with almond milk, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, garlic powder, onion powder, nutritional yeast and salt. Blend until everything is smooth and creamy. Stop and scrape down the sides of the blender as needed.
- Pour mixture into a small bowl and add the dried dill and parsely. Mix until everything is well combined.
- Serve on top of your salad, sandwich, or use as a dip for a veggie tray.
You can enjoy this immediately. But, I like to put mine in the fridge and let it sit for a couple of hours. It thickens and the flavors have time to really sit together.
Tips & Suggestions
- If you have a nut allergy use sunflower seeds in place of the cashews.
- To make this dressing lower in fat and nut-free replace the cashews with a 12-ounce block of silken firm tofu.
- I prefer to use dried herbs for convenience but you may also use fresh herbs. Just be sure and double the amount of fresh herbs.
Storage
What To Serve With Vegan Ranch Dressing
The question should be, “What CAN’T you serve with vegan ranch dressing?”
- Drizzle it over these Fat-Free Potato Chips
- Pour it over my Quinoa Blackbean Salad
- Perfect for spreading on top of your favorite vegan pizza.
- Use it as a dip your homemade oil-free french fries
- It’s great in this Chipotle Bowl
- Over these Oil-free Oven Roasted Potatoes
- It’s great as vegan ranch dip for sliced veggies like celery and carrots.
- It’s also great on this Potato Chip & Tomato Sandwich. Yeah, that’s right!
You are going to love this Vegan Ranch Dressing recipe. It’s…
- Creamy
- Rich
- Tangy
- Full of flavor
- Easy to make
- & Extremely delicious
More Vegan Oil Free Dressing and Spread Recipes
- Creamy Cashew Vegan Mayo
- Balsamic Oil Free Salad Dressing
- Vegan Honey Mustard Salad Dressing
- Garlicky Lemon Tahini Dressing
- Easy Vegan Chipotle Aioli
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Vegan Ranch Dressing
- Total Time20 minutes
- Yield12 servings 1x
- DietVegan
This is the easiest vegan ranch dressing recipe. It’s creamy, full of flavor, and completely oil-free! Perfect for salads, vegetables, and sandwiches. Dairy-free, oil-free, and gluten-free.
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups raw cashews
- 1 cup unsweetened almond milk or soy milk
- 2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 2 Tbsp lemon juice
- 2 tsp. garlic powder
- 2 tsp. onion powder
- 2 tsp. nutritional yeast
- ½ tsp salt or to taste
- 1 Tbsp dried dill
- 2 tsp. dried parsley
Instructions
- Soak cashews in water for 2-4 hours or boil for 5-10 minutes.
- Just before you are ready to drain the cashews, about 5 minutes, add the apple cider vinegar and lemon juice to the milk mix really well. Allow it to sit for just a couple of minutes. You’re essentially making vegan buttermilk. This step is not essentially necessary, but I feel it does enhance the overall flavor.
- Drain cashews and add to your blender with almond milk, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, garlic powder, onion powder, nutritional yeast and salt. Blend until everything is smooth and creamy. Stop and scrape down the sides of the blender as needed.
- Pour mixture into a small bowl and add the dried dill and parsely. Mix until everything is well combined.
- Serve on top of your salad, sandwich, or use as a dip for a veggie tray.
- You can store this for up to a week in a jar with an airtight lid in the fridge.
Notes
If you have a nut allergy use sunflower seeds in place of the cashews.
To make this dressing lower in fat and nut-free replace the cashews with a 12-ounce block of silken firm tofu.
I prefer to use dried herbs for convenience but you may also use fresh herbs. Just be sure and double the amount of fresh herbs.
You can store this for up to a week in a jar with an airtight lid in the fridge.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 2 Tbsp
- Calories: 86
- Sugar: 0.9 g
- Sodium: 111.9 mg
- Fat: 6.4 g
- Carbohydrates: 5.4 g
- Fiber: 0.7 g
- Protein: 3 g
- Cholesterol: 0 mg
- Prep Time: 10 mins.
- Cook Time: 10 mins.
- Category: Dips & Spreads
- Method: Blender
- Cuisine: Vegan
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Ho-ly smokes!! This fancy dressing is DIVINE!! I was lazy and didn’t soak the cashews – just threw it in the Vitamix – and it came creamy dreamy!! 😍
Fabulous recipe Shane! Stuck to your recipe, but swapped out the cashews for silken tofu. The BEST ranch dressing recipe I’ve ever made! Rich and zesty and way too easy!!!
so damn good
This is AMAZING! God willing, I will always try to keep this as a staple.🩵 I have 2 large Mason Jars in the fridge of it right now. Thank you so much for another GREAT recipe.
This one is hubby’s favorite! He’s had trouble finding the right Ranch dressing replacement, this is it! Thank you Shane!
Awesome!!!
Vegan ranch is great. I did thin mine a bit. I made it with cashews and next time I am going to try the tofu.
The first time I made this I tasted before I added the dill and thought his would be the perfect base for creamy garlic dressing. I finally made it this week and I was so spot on with what I was craving. Thank you Shane for 2 great recipes.
I should have known better……
than to doubt one of your recipes. I’ve seen and bypassed this recipe so many times. I was afraid it would taste like other vegan dressings i have tried, but I was craving a creamy salad dressing so I decided to give it a shot. I absolutely love it!!! I used firm silken tofu rather than cashews and it is incredible! Problem solved. Now I not only have a really good creamy dressing, but a really good veggie dip as well. Thank you, thank you for all you do.
Joanie, that is so great! Thank you for reaching out and sharing this with me. It makes me do the “happy dance.” LOL! Blessings!
I love this recipe!!!! I’ve tried a variety of whole-foods-plant-based ranch dressings and they don’t compare to this one! The flavor is rich, the texture is thick and creamy and it was very easy to make 🙂 I followed the recipe as written but I substituted white beans for the cashews. This is my new go to for healthy ranch dressing. Thank you Shane! I look forward to trying more of your recipes.
Excellent base recipe with tofu, to which I have added fresh garlic, more dill, your no salt all purpose spice mix – it gives a big quantity and can easily be cut in half and with the other half of tofu, make a great tofu sheet pann! Thanks Shane!
I made this with sunflower seeds and fresh dill and wound up adding an extra quarter cup of lemon juice, an extra quarter cup apple cider vinegar and half a cup of water to thin it out because it felt like it was too thick for a salad dressing. I still think it is a bit thick for that purpose for my tastes but it made a fantastic dip for pretzel thins and I can always thin it out more for salad. I have also bee making open-faced sammies with a bit of this spread on ancient grain bread from the farmer’s market and fresh tomato. Very good! I will be making this again, though perhaps a half batch next time so I can eat it all before it turns. Thanks so much for the recipe (gptta gp easy due to all the fat but a little goes a long way!).
Hi Shane, I saw you on Chef AJ earlier this week and I lived it and have checked out your website. I made the ranch dressing yesterday.
I’m making the chickpea curry today (I had to go to the store)
So happy to find you!
Going to make microwave potatoes chips today.
I make Mary McDougall baked tortilla chips.
Now I can make your potato chips too!
Delicious flavor but mine turned out grainy do you think I maybe just needed to blend longer? Otherwise I love it!
Hi, Emily! So glad you enjoyed it. What type of blending device did you use?
This was a delicious garlicky ranch. Was perfect for a wrap. I loved that it didn’t have any fresh herbs which I often don’t have on hand. The dried herbs also made the flavor of the dill more mellow which I appreciate since I’m not a huge fan of dill.
This dressing is awesome! It is the first whole food plant based ranch dressing that I have made that truly tastes terrific. Thank you, Shane! I currently have the buffalo tofu wings in the oven and look forward to dipping them in the dressing!
Dorinda, that’s so great! Thanks for reaching out and letting me know.
Just noticed your comment. I just made a batch of Shane’s dressing to accompany buffalo wings too! But to make the dressing lighter, I replaced half of the nuts with cauliflower. The dressing turned out great! It likely wasn’t as smooth and rich as it would have been if I had used all the nuts the recipe called for but it still was really good. Hopefully, this tip may help some folks.
Thanks for the great recipe Shane!
Omg so good. I’ve been eating it straight from the spoon. Better than regular high fat high dairy ranch dressing. Thank you so much for all your hard work and providing recipes like this. I’ve only been on the WFPB eating for 2 weeks and you have so simplified it. Thanks again!
This ranch dressing turned out excellent. I did cut back on the onion and garlic powder till I tasted it. It was very thick so I thinned out some as a salad dressing and left the rest as a dip. I used a better quality (i.e. less watered down) soy milk which I feel added to the creaminess. The ACV and lemon juice really did turn it into vegan buttermilk. Quick and easy in the blender. Thanks for the great recipe.
Garlic bread Hack! This ranch on toast topped with nutritional yeast is my new favourite side to salad! So exited to have just thought of this! 🤤
I’m excited now!!!
What can be used in place for nutritional yeast or can it be omitted?
Hi, Tiffany! Unfortunately, there really is no replacement for nooch. But, you can simply leave it out and it will still be delicious.
Craveable! I liked the spatula.
I made this substituting the cashews with white beans and OMG SO good….just love the dill flavour, the creaminess and lower fat content
Hi, this is the BEST ranch dressing! I make it 2x a week! I love it on everything. Thank you!😇
I’m so glad you enjoy it. Thanks so much!
I have so many vegan salad dressing recipes, my favorite is ranch. Your ranch dressing is the best one out there! Thank you! 5 Stars for sure!
Thank you!!!!
Possible to make with oat milk? Or is there a particular reason to use almond or soy?
No, any plant milk will work. Almond milk is just always my go to because it’s the most accessible where I live. Just be sure it’s unsweetened plant milk.
I love this dressing I make it a lot!!
Do you think it could be frozen?
I usually don’t end up eating it all before it’s starts to get a little funky and I’m terrible and making a smaller batch
If I could freeze it and then thaw and give a quick mix again do you think it might work ???
I love all your recipes Shane you are amazing! Thank you for all you do!
Love this too! I’ve been scrolling to see if anyone asked about freezing. I didn’t see a reply. Can anyone comment on whether it worked for them? Thanks.
It doesn’t freeze very well in my experience.
Wow! I don’t have a high-powered blender, so I just used 1/2 cup of cashew butter. I used all of the other ingredients as listed, but left out the nutritional yeast. It came out the consistency of a dressing (too runny for just a dip), and is DELICIOUS!!!! I wanted a dressing to put on salads and roasted veggies, but if I want a dip, I can just add more cashew butter.
Shane, I have tried other vegan ranch recipes before, but you just made me a believer! In fact, I am going to use the rest of my cashew butter to make your queso recipe tonight!
Love this recipe! I tend to not eat too many salads because all store bought dressings have so many unhealthy ingredients in them, as well as, oil and sugar. This has me back to eating healthy greens and veggies again! Thanks!
Awesome dressing, Shane! I used half cashews and half white beans. I will be making this often. Thank you!
Yummy ranch dressing…I love it on my salad…and my husband likes to use this as a dip for his celery sticks! So much healthier than the bottled dressings!
Shane,
Hello, this dressing is fabulous. So nice and creamy. I use it in my pasta salads instead of the cashew cream. I spread it on my toast with tomato and lettuce. This is a winner and the recipe is taped to the inside cabinet. always have it at my fingertips.
Have an awesome day and you and your family stay safe.
Thank you so much!!!
Hey, Shane!
I am currently trying to transition from omnivore to WFPB. I was skeptical because recipes on other sites that I have tried have not tasted good to me. This is a game changer! So good (even with white beans because I could not find oil free cashew butter or fresh raw cashews at my local store), and I even made a second batch with spices that I used to use for a buttermilk recipe! I can’t wait to try more of your recipes!!!
Thank you so much, Karla! I’m so glad yo enjoyed it.
Delicious!! The first time I tried making vegan ranch was by adding a few spices to a vegan mayonnaise during the first few months of being vegan. It came out ok, so I was discouraged to try a new recipe. However, after seeing the vegan buffalo tofu wings recipe yesterday,I just had to make the ranch dressing to go with it. It came out amazing!! I did half the recipe. Absolutely loved it. 100% recommend. I would only label it as a dipping sauce, but just add additional liquid to get a dressing consistency! <3
Made this last night to go with raw carrots, celery and Shave’s Tofu Wings. Well this dip and the Tofu Wings are five stars 🌟. Thanks for another recipe for my rotation.
Darn autocorrect, Shane’s Tofu Wings.
I added some chipotle seasoning to add more flavor and a little bite. We thinned it out with almond milk and it worked perfectly. This is the best vegan rach dressing we have made so far. Thank you so very much!!!
Hi – As suggested, I thinned out the Ranch Dip/Dressing, and adjusted the seasoning to taste. It’s a perfect dressing for salads, potatoes, and other vegetables. I was a little skeptical about it tasting like non-vegan Ranch dressing. It tastes like Ranch dressing, even better! I’m looking forward to making it into a dip the next time.
Thank you, Valerie!
Authentic ranch flavor! We love this recipe. The consistency is perfect for dip. As Shane suggests, you can thin it out with a bit more almond milk for a more dressing-like consistency.
I eat a lot of ranch dressing and hadn’t found one I liked. I was on the verge of buying a bottle of ranch but decided to try your recipe. It’s really good! Now I don’t need to buy bottled ranch. Thank you!
Thank you, Melanie! If you wouldn’t mind, I’d really appreciate you giving it star rating. It helps me and other with the “google gods.” 🙂 Blessings.
could you use pumpkin seeds instead of cashews. Nut allergy
I would try something like hemp seeds. They cream up very nicely.
Since the cashews are going into the blender why do they first need to be chopped? Thanks!!
They don’t. That’s a misprint. I just fixed it. Thanks for catching it.
I make this nearly every week. Delicious! I use raw sunflower seeds instead of cashews, and rice milk instead of almond. Plus chives instead of onions, and celery salt and ginger instead of garlic. It’s still delicious. I finished some off yesterday and I might make another batch tonight!
That’s awesome, Colleen! Thank you so much for sharing your substitutions. They sound great! Blessings.
Wow, yum!! It’s been AGES since I had ranch dressing, so I don’t even remember what it tastes like, but this has got to be better. It’ll make a great dip or dressing! Thanks!
I make this exactly like recipe says. It is now my favorite ranch dressing. I have a Vitamix and I do soak or boil the cashews for the creamiest dressing.
Thank you so much!
So happy that they are ingredients that everybody will have in their home,
Hi Shane. I love a lot of your recipes,although I don’t comment very often. Can’t i use soy milk instead of almond? That’s what I have right now.
Yes, absolutely! Almond milk is simply my preference. I’ll amend the recipe to mention that as a choice.
This looks really good and I’m anxious to try it….I’ve been disappointed so many times by the other vegan ranch dressings I’ve tried. I like that you didn’t add any sweeteners. What I don’t understand is why it would last only about a week in the fridge. It has both vinegar and lemon juice in it. Wouldn’t that make it last longer? I will rate it after I make it and see how it tastes.
Would it be possible to white beans for the cashews?
I’ve never tried it. I would try Tofu if you are not opposed to soy over the white beans. You’ll probably get more of a “hummus” consistency. But, hey, I say it’s worth trying…at least once:)
i HAVE USED CANNELINI BEANS AND IT IS GOOD BUT, I prefer it with the cashews because it creamier. Thank you for this amazing recipe.
I have been looking for an easy Healthy dressing creamy is my fav… gonna give this a go 🙂
Thanks! I hope you enjoy it.
Amazing!!!