Easy Spicy Cashew Dressing (just 8 ingredients!)

This scrumptious spicy cashew dressing requires just eight ingredients and roughly two minutes for some thick spicy creamy vegan goodness. Drizzle it over a hearty salad, use it as a dip, or add to a delicious healthy Buddha bowl.

You can use soaked cashews or cashew butter to make this easy dressing. If you’re like me and always forget to soak cashews, don’t worry, just quick-soak them and leave them to soften for as long as possible to ensure a smoother sauce.

I use this dressing for:

• Kale based salads. Especially with added shredded cabbage, carrots, beansprouts, peppers, raisins and peanuts (yum).
• Buddha-style bowls. I just grab some cooked couscous, brown rice or quinoa, a range of veggies, sliced avocado, nuts, and drizzle away.
• Bean salads.
• Dipping raw carrots and cucumber in. It’s also awesome with celery.
• Dipping pizza crusts in (don’t judge, I can’t do plain crusts – if I wanted bread I’d eat bread not pizza!)
• Impromptu noodle salads with leftover noodles.

If spicy vegan salad dressings are your thing, I also highly recommend trying out my balsamic mustard dressing. For a quick and healthy dip that’s on the sweeter side, try my Greek yogurt apple dip.

Ingredients and substitutions

I tested quite a few combos to perfect this spicy cashew dressing, so there are actually very few substitutions I recommend but we’ll get into what is okay below. First, check out the ingredients needed in this image:

Now let’s make some notes on any changes that can be made:

• Soy sauce: You can use low-sodium soy sauce or coconut aminos instead. Substitute the same amount, but be aware that if you use low-sodium soy sauce you may have to add salt to taste. If you use coconut aminos add half the agave and then add to taste as coconut aminos are sweeter than soy sauce.
• Agave nectar: This can be swapped out for the same amount of any liquid sweetener, e.g. maply syrup or honey (although the dressing will no longer be considered vegan if you use honey).
• Cashews: You can use soaked cashews or cashew butter (check the amounts in the recipe card) but this sauce is also amazing with peanut butter! Tahini is nice as well but it’s a little “claggy” and you may have to increase the amount of lemon juice.
• Water: Totally necessary but the amount can be adjusted up or down depending on how thick or thin you want it.
• Hot sauce: Make sure you use a vinegar-based hot sauce like Frank’s RedHot, Tabasco etc. If you don’t have any you can use red chili pepper flakes instead – try half a teaspoon and then increase to taste.

How spicy is it?

This dressing is mild-medium spicy. Feel free to dial the spiciness up or down depending on whether you like it hot or not.

How to make it

Spicy cashew dressing comes together in just minutes If you’re using cashew butter or had the time to soak your cashews overnight. You can literally just chuck everything into a high-powered blender or food processor, blend, and enjoy.

However, if you’re using quick soaked cashews (or you’re blender or food processor is not that great), I highly recommend adding everything EXCEPT the water. Then blitz until as smooth as possible and incorporate the water bit by bit, blending in between adding it.

This will give you the smoothest dressing possible. The amount of water can also be adjusted, I like my dressing fairly thick but you may like yours thinner. Similarly, if you want to use this dressing as a dip then less water is better to ensure it’s thick enough to coat veggies or whatever you choose to dip in it.

FAQs

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