Spicy Cashew Dressing You’ll Love!

If you’ve ever thought salads were boring, you’ll adore this delicious and creamy spicy cashew dressing! It goes amazingly well with green salads, grain bowls, or just as a dip!

Why cashews? Well, they’re delicious, they blend into a very creamy consistency, and they’re healthy!

(Here’s healthline’s article on the nutritional benefits of cashews.)

What can I use this spicy cashew dressing on?

If you’re looking for a “creamy” vegan salad dressing, this is delicious on your garden variety green salad.

It also tastes wonderful over Buddha bowls or grain bowls with roasted veggies. The nutty flavor from the cashews complement brown rice especially well.

Try some poured over my purple kale with brown rice!

You can also drizzle some on sandwiches, pitas, falafels, wraps, or anything that would benefit from a bit more zing and flavor.

Use it as a stir fry sauce or a dressing for a cold noodle salad, too, if you’d like!

Tips and Best Practices for Making this Spicy Cashew Dressing

Soaking the cashews

If you have a powerful blender like a Vitamix, you can just blend the raw cashews as it.

For more typical kitchen equipment, it is best to either soak the cashews in water overnight the night before, or use hot water and soak them for 15 minutes or so just before you make the dressing.

If you choose the quick soak method, you can cover the bowl you soak them in with an upside down plate for best results.

Or don’t – use cashew butter!

Alternatively, you can buy cashew butter and use a few tablespoons of that as the base for this dressing.

That makes the recipe simpler, but a tad more expensive.

If you do buy a big bag of raw cashews, you can store them in the freezer so they stay fresh longer.

Taste as you go.

As with most recipes, you can make this very simply with just a few of these ingredients, or go all out like I did.

It was actually quite tasty at various stages along the way, but I was seeking perfection!

Toasted sesame oil has quite a strong flavor, so give it a sniff before adding it. Most people either love it or strongly dislike it.

I love it, but maybe try just a teaspoon if you’re not sure about it.

How spicy is this dressing?

I would say it’s perhaps medium spicy to mild-medium spicy as written.

If you only use half the crushed red pepper flakes I would consider it mild.

I added only 1/2 tsp of crushed red pepper flakes at first, but I didn’t think it was spicy enough from just a taste, so I went ahead and added another 1/2 tsp.

With the full teaspoon, by the end of whole bowl of salad, you could definitely taste that it was spicy, but not too spicy for me or I’m guessing the average person.

On the other hand, if you want it pretty hot, you could either make a smaller batch with half the cashews and all the same spices, or add more hot sauce and crushed red pepper to this recipe.

You could also use a hotter hot sauce like sriracha.

Spicy Cashew Dressing Ingredients

Before you begin, you will need:

Edible Ingredients

• 1 cup of raw cashews
• 3/4 cup of water
• 2 Tbsp lemon juice
• 1 Tbsp hot sauce (vinegar based to keep it vegan – think Cholula or Frank’s, for example)
• 1 Tbsp liquid aminos or soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp of toasted sesame oil (or skip it for a no added oil recipe)
• 1 Tbsp of nutritional yeast
• 2 inches of fresh ginger
• 1 large or 2 small cloves of fresh garlic
• 1/2 tsp of salt
• 1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes (try half at a time if you are concerned about making it too spicy)

Tools and Equipment

• A blender or food processor (the blender is recommended for a truly creamy dressing)
• Measuring spoons and cups
• Colander
• Kettle for boiling water

How to Make Spicy Cashew Dressing

1. First, if you didn’t soak the cashews overnight and you don’t have a high-powered blender like a Vitamix, you’ll want to flash soak them. Pour hot water over the cashews in a bowl and set a timer for 15 minutes. Cover the bowl with a plate to trap the heat if desired.
2. While the cashews are soaking, peel the ginger and garlic, and set everything out.
3. Once the 15 minutes are up, drain the cashews into a strainer or colander. Then, dump the cashews and all the other ingredients into a blender. (A food processor may work, but mine didn’t get the cashews all that creamy, so I had to switch to a blender.)
4. Next, taste the dressing and see if you want to add anything – extra lemon or salt would be good but not necessary. I also just squeezed extra lemon juice over my whole salad, but it was very tasty both before and after the extra lemon.
5. Finally, check out the consistency. This dressing is very thick and creamy, so you may wish to add 1 Tbsp at a time more water to thin it out and make it a little easier to pour, but that’s optional. Serve over your meal of choice and enjoy!

How long can you store this?

You can store leftover salad dressing in an airtight jar in the fridge for up to a week, if you haven’t eaten it all by then.

Can you freeze it?

Yes, you can freeze some for later! The consistency changes a bit, so just pop it back in the blender and re-mix, maybe with a touch of water, for optimal pouring texture.

Pin it for later!

Variations on this recipe and Ingredient Substitutions

Truly, you can make this as elaborate or simple as you’d like. Once you have the base of blended cashews and water with salt, everything else is just extra delicious.

For an easy version using pantry staples, you can use garlic powder and/or ginger powder instead of fresh. Feel free to add ground black pepper and/or onion powder as desired, or any other spices you enjoy.

Many people enjoy sweet salad dressings. A tablespoon of maple syrup or honey would go well with this dressing if desired (just note the honey would make it no longer vegan). I personally don’t care for sweet dressings as much, so I didn’t bother.

Try adding seasoned rice vinegar, apple cider vinegar, or even just white vinegar for a bit more zing.

You could use sriracha hot sauce for more of a kick.

Add some olive oil if you want it to stick better to your greens.

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I hope you enjoyed this recipe for spicy cashew dressing!