Hooray for salad season! The farmers markets are open and full of beautiful tender salad greens just waiting to come home with us. Here’s a creamy delicious recipe for Vegan Ranch Dressing that can be made without oil! Low calorie & made with silken tofu. Dairy-free, Nut-free, Gluten-Free and ZERO Cholesterol! Perfect for salads, wraps, bowls or as a veggie dip!
Some of you have been telling me that you are trying to cook with less oil, or less fat. Here’s a little creamy goodness, that is perfect for you out there, watching your calories, cholesterol, oil or fat intake, but still crave something creamy. It won’t work for everyone, because it contains silken tofu (soy) but it will be a godsend for some of you, like it is for me. Vegan Ranch Dressing.
Benefits of Silken Tofu:
Yes, vegan cashew dressing is delicious, but just take a look at the fat content. It’s 3 times as much as using silken tofu. For some of you, healthy fat from cashews is good, and I totally get it.
My husband eats 4 cups of nuts a day and stays thin as a rail and thrives. For others (like me) lower-fat is better. There are a lot of vegan cashew dressings out there as well as vegan mayo-based dressings, but I thought I’d focus on a low-fat, oil-optional, vegan dressing that harnesses the amazing qualities of silken tofu. Smooth, creamy and low-fat and the perfect blank canvas for so many flavor combinations!
Just take a look at these!
Vegan Chipotle Mayo -aka Mexican Secret Sauce
How to make a vegan dressing with tofu?
- It starts with Silken Tofu and a blender. Silken Tofu is found in most grocery stores and is usually not refrigerated. It is not the same as regular tofu. It has a very silky, grain-free texture, perfect for sauces, soups, dressings and desserts. I like this brand because it is non-gmo and organic. I also like it because it is not refrigerated and doesn’t go bad. I always keep a few in my pantry.
- The key is blending the silken tofu until smooth and creamy- with adequate salt, acid, seasonings and just a little liquid ( oil or water) to get the blender motor going.
- So very simple!
Place everything in the blender and blend it up until smooth.
You can leave the olive oil out and make it totally oil-free.
My personal preference is to add 2 tablespoons olive oil, which is really not a whole lot but adds a nice silkiness, better for salads, coating the lettuce nicely.
You can use most any fresh herbs that you have on hand. I’ve been loving fresh oregano in this. But dill is nice, parsley or even thyme.
Whip it up until smooth and store the Creamy Vegan Ranch Dressing in a jar in the fridge for up to 10 days.
Creamy Vegan Ranch is a simple, basic recipe for you to fiddle with and perfect to your own tastes. I hope you embellish it and make it your own!
Enjoy… and I hope it helps on your own healthy journey.
Try this on Blackened Tempeh with kale and Avocado!
Or on Farmers market veggies !
xoxo
If you like this please rate and leave a comment below, sharing how you use it and/ or adapt it!
Creamy Vegan Ranch Dressing
- Prep Time: 10
- Total Time: 10 minutes
- Yield: 1 heaping cup
- Category: salad, vegan, Dressings, Condiments
- Method: Blend
- Cuisine: American,
Description
A delicious recipe for Creamy Vegan Ranch Dressing that can be made without oil! Low calorie & made with silken tofu. Dairy-free, Nut-free, Gluten-Free and ZERO Cholesterol! Perfect for salads, wraps, bowls or as a veggie dip!
Ingredients
- 1 package silken tofu ( 12.3 ounces) firm
- 2 tablespoons water
- 2 tablespoons olive oil ( or sub with 2 T water — or use 1 T water and 1 T oil– for lower calories)
- 2 fat garlic cloves
- 1 rounded teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon crushed peppercorns ( or stir these in at the end)
- 1 ½ tablespoons apple cider or sherry vinegar
- 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast (optional)
- 1–2 tablespoon fresh oregano, dill or parsley or use 1 teaspoon dry
Instructions
Place everything in a blender and blend until very smooth, scraping down sides as necessary.
Store in the fridge in a jar, keeps for 10 days.
Notes
To make this even lower-calorie, or totally oil-free, you could leave out the oil completely or use 1 tablespoon less.
To make this taste richer, add more olive oil!
Keywords: vegan ranch dressing, vegan ranch, vegan dressing, how to use silken tofu?
Best vegan Ranch I’ve tasted! Kudos Sylvia and thank you for sharing!
thanks Jill!
Just made this! Added 1/4c almond meal for texture, 2T fresh dill, a dash of basil and oregano, and extra pepper. So good!
★★★★★
Great Caitlin! sounds good!
This recipe is surprisingly good. There is no tofu taste, and since I love garlic I put four cloves in. I also used dried chives rather than parsley or oregano. Thank you!! I used NO oil and the extra two tablespoons of water. I also cut the salt in half. Thank you!!!
★★★★★
Glad you like this!
amazing trying right now <3
★★★★★
I just made this recipe tonight but added a little bit of lemon juice, pickled jalapeño juice and a few pickled jalapeños and it was AMAZING!!! Thank you for sharing this!!! Finally can enjoy salads with diff option dressing than just Dijon mustard 🙂
Good recipe. Made as directed but added more dill and some pickle juice. Doubled the fresh pepper at the end. Added a date to up the sweetness. Excellent base to play with. For me I did thin it out more with. I prefer a thinner dressing. Made about 7 servings for me.
★★★★★
Hey very nice blog!
★★★★★
I was craving ranch dressing, and had half a brick of silken tofu in my fridge… I’m so glad I found this. This was even more delicious than the vegan mayo-based ranch recipes I’ve tried! And I can truly call it healthy ranch dressing. The texture was absolutely perfect. I’m going to be making this and variations on it all the time now.
★★★★★
this is spot-on….really delicious…
★★★★★
This recipe is amazing! I added 1/3 cup lemon juice to it. I am on Weight Watchers and if the olive oil is replaced with water, it’s zero weight watchers points so I can eat as much as I want. It’s a saving grace when I get the munchies, it makes a great dip for vegtables. Thankyou so much!
★★★★★
Great substitute! I actually used a different brand that was 16oz (more than the recipe called for) but it worked perfect. I didnt have to adjust any of the other ingredients and I opted to make it oil free. I’ll be making it again for sure but I’ll skip on the optional nutritional yeast.
★★★★★
Thanks Sharon and good to know!
This is the best healthy vegan dressing that I’ve ever made. I’m trying to eat a whole food diet though so instead of adding the oil I just threw in a couple tablespoons of cashews and used my high speed blender to mix it. It was absolutely delicious! Thank you for sharing!
★★★★★
Oh good! Glad it worked for you!
Just made this. (Put an extra Tbsp of vinegar in error) still delicious
★★★★★
This was way too much garlic taste for me. Really 2 fat garlic cloves when it makes only about 1 ½ C cups of dressing? None of my family would eat it. If I try it again I will definitely just use powdered garlic
★★
Sorry about that. I really enjoy the “kick” but perhaps not for everyone. 😉 It does mellow after a few hours.
So delicious! Delighted to have found a plant based recipe that tastes just like the ranch dressing I have been missing as a vegan. Thanks so much!
★★★★★
This was too salty for me. I omitted the oil and water and texture was still pretty runny – I added a can of rinsed and drained white beans to balance out the salt and give some body.
★★★★
Leaving the water and oil out would probably make it salty. When tossed with a salad, the salt is mellowed as well.
Simple, healthy, and delicious! Loved it. Thank you so much!
★★★★★
So good, so easy!
★★★★★
OMG…just made this = DELICIOUS!!!
★★★★★
yay! Im glad you like it!
Excited to try this recipe! Great to have a vegan dressing without loads of oil. P.s. I love the 1X 2X 3X feature on the recipe. I meal prep weekly and often have to upsize recipes to make enough for two people for five days of meals. Thank you for this feature!!
Thanks, Lauren! Also double check the feature is working correctly. Sometimes it can be glitchy.
So easy and delicious!
★★★★
OMGoodness…shut the front door. I typically shy away from making any type of a salad dressing, and of all things, a Ranch dressing in particular.
I’ve just been converted.
Thank you because it’s truly delicious!
★★★★★
Im so glad you liked this Becky!
This was delicious! Used as a dip for buffalo cauliflower wings, celery, and carrots, and it was well-received! Reminded me a little of an onion dip you could dunk chips into! Yum 🙂
★★★★★
Great to hear- love it!
Awesome soo delicious
★★★★★
So simple and delicious! Thank you for sharing. This one is a KEEPER!! I will be making this often 🙂
★★★★★
Glad you hear you like it!
Hi again…I forgot to mention that tofu is great as a protein replacement but in a salad dressing… let’s just say you changed that, and again thanks for such a wonderful surprise.
OMG -This is the BEST!
★★★★★
Yummy! And so easy. Why did I wait so long????????
★★★★★
My tummy doesn’t like raw garlic – do you think I can use garlic powder instead (or would you recommend I just leave it out?)
yes, try granulated! or even roasted would probably work too!
I haven’t made this yet–planning to tonight, though–but I just realized I got SOFT silken tofu from the refrigerated section. Do you know if this will still work? I get so confused between silken tofu and soft and firm. I thought for sauces you needed the soft stuff, whether or not it was silken. And now I’m looking at the recipe and see you used firm tofu. Why is tofu so confusing! I hope it’ll work because the recipe looks YUM!
It should be fine!
This was surprisingly great! It makes more than enough to use in the cajun tempeh recipe while leaving plenty of extra to use as a dip. I do just kinda want to just drink it out of my jar but I’m trying to have more class than that.
★★★★★
Haha! I’m with you! 🙂 Thanks for sharing and rating! Appreciated so much!
.
★★★★★
I’m just saving the blackened tempeh recipe along with this dressing, but wanted to say I love the way you write. It’s like sharing a recipe with a friend–so honest and down to earth.
Awwww, thanks Julie!