Thick and creamy vegan roasted garlic dressing is perfect for salads, casseroles, roasted vegetables, pasta, burgers, etc. Use it instead of mayonnaise! Healthy, flavorful, refreshing!
If you haven’t tried roasting garlic yet, you should, because this roasted garlic dressing is just amazing!
It has this unique and rich sweetish flavor, which is so much different from raw pungent garlic we are used to. It makes a great base for this thick and creamy roasted garlic dressing. You can use it in salads, casseroles, roasted vegetables, pasta, fish, burgers, tacos, you name it. It gives a really nice refreshing touch to any dish. I really love the way bold-flavored leafy greens taste with this dressing.
It’s a much healthier vegan alternative to mayonnaise, so you can also use it in dishes you normally add mayo to. It’s a great option for healthier eating, just to substitute things you usually eat to their healthier alternatives. Check out my Vegan Spaghetti Bolognese, for instance.
When I said that this dressing is healthy, I meant that all the health benefits of raw garlic are preserved in roasted garlic.
I have a question to you: How many cloves of raw garlic can you incorporate in your salad? 1? 2? 3 top? The salad would become overly garlicky, and other flavors would be killed. Besides, you would have, well, not so pleasant garlic breath after eating raw garlic. In contrast, roasted garlic doesn’t leave you with bad breath and its taste is much less intense but still rich.
With more garlic on your plate (in the form of roasted garlic dressing or any other), you receive more health benefits. And the way to eat more garlic without having the side effects I was talking about (bad breath and taste intensity) is to roast it and make a dressing from it! That way you can consume up to 8 cloves per portion, which wouldn’t be possible with raw garlic.
Most of garlic’s health benefits include potential anti-cancer, immune-strengthening, metabolism-boosting and heart disease-preventing effects. The more garlic you consume, the more effects it’ll have on your health! I encourage you to try roasting your garlic if you haven’t done it yet. Honestly, it was a discovery to me. Now I’m obsessed with its robust, nutty, mellow and caramelized flavor!
The best part: It’s very easy to make. To roast the garlic, cut the tips off the head, exposing the ends of the cloves, so that it’s easier for you to peel them later. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and black pepper and wrap each head in a piece of aluminum foil. Roast for 35-40 minutes until tender and aromatic.
It makes sense to roast more than just one head at once. I roasted three heads in one batch and used two of them for the dressing and saved the rest for later use. You can roast your garlic in advance and store it in olive oil.
When you are ready to make a roasted garlic dressing from it, just take it out, add cashew nuts, lime juice, sesame and olive oil, capers, vegetable broth, white wine vinegar and honey.
You can substitute brown sugar for honey to make this dressing vegan. Just blend everything together until smooth and you are ready to go. Here is a recipe for you:
Roasted Garlic Dressing
Ingredients
For the roasted garlic:
- 2 big heads garlic
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- pinch of salt
- pinch of black pepper
For the dressing:
- 2 heads roasted garlic roasted and peeled
- a handful cashew nuts
- juice of 1/2 lime
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon mustard
- 1 teaspoon capers
- 1 teaspoon honey or brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
- 250 ml or 1 cup vegetable broth or more
- salt
- black pepper
Instructions
- Roast the garlic: Preheat the oven to 200 °C or 400 °F. Cut the tips off the head, exposing the ends of the cloves, so that it's easier for you to peel them later. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and black pepper and wrap each head in a piece of aluminum foil. Roast for 35-40 minutes until tender and aromatic. Let it cool and peel.
- Make the dressing: Combine peeled garlic, cashew nuts, lime juice, sesame and olive oil, mustard, capers, honey (or brown sugar), white wine vinegar and vegetable broth. Blend everything together until smooth using a food processor or immersion blender. I use Philips Avance Collection Blender. Add more broth if you like more liquid consistency. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy!
Notes
Store the roasted garlic in olive oil in the fridge for up to 10 days.
Store the dressing in the fridge for up to 1 week.
Tip: you can use other nuts instead of cashew. I tried to make this dressing with walnuts and it tasted great, too. Though the color was not as bright as with cashews.
Have you tried roasted garlic? Do you love it as much as I do? 🙂
Cheers,
Elena
Sounds delish till I saw the honey in it … not vegan sadly
Hi Natasha, I actually plan to post a vegan version of that dressing. But it’s nit hard to make it vegan – just substitute agave nectar for honey. Hope that helps! Cheers
Looks great! Do you have a recipe with for the dish that you have pictured? It looks so delicious but I cant make out all the ingredients. Sweet potatoes, kale? Those are a few I can pick out. LOL
Hi Krystina, thank you for pointing that out! I should include a link to this casserole dish in this post because I have it published 🙂 Here you go, sweet potato casserole with black beans, kale and buckwheat. It’s delicious and goes so well with the roasted garlic dressing. Cheers!
Hi! Do you have a substitute for the cashews? My husband has a nut allergy. We can only do almonds and walnuts in the house but those two don’t have the same consistency as cashews! Also we aren’t vegan so any advice on options would be welcome!
Hi Ashlie! That’s a very interesting question and it made me think quite a bit 🙂 First of all, you can try it with soaked almonds. Walnuts would work as well but they will give a greyish color to the dressing. If you don’t mind that, you can try it out. The flavor will be slightly different but not too much. As for dairy options, how about Greek yogurt? I would add it to the dressing AFTER blending because it tends to become too liquid otherwise. You might need less broth since without nuts the dressing will be rather runny. Hope it’s helpful! Cheers!
Does this freeze well? If I make a bunch and freeze for later?
Hi Carley, I didn’t try it myself but I don’t see why it wouldn’t freeze well. Once you thaw it, you might want to blend it before using for better consistency. In case you need to adjust it: add more cashews if it’s too liquid or add more broth/water if it’s too thick. Hope it helps!
Sorry, but in order to get most of the health benefits from garlic, it needs to be raw. The sauce looks great anyhow!
Hi Jeanne, thank you! In this recipe roasted garlic overpowers the raw one in quantity 😉
What type of cashews? raw? roasted?
Hi Dianne, I used raw cashews but I think roasted would be OK too.
I am going to make this thicker by cutting back on the broth & use it as a white sauce for pizza.
What a great idea, Jackie! Thank you for your comment! I would love to know how it turned out 😉
I’m very glad you added that you’ve tried it with walnuts with good results, as I cannot eat most nuts. I can’t wait to try this!
It’s just as good with walnuts, Veronica! I’m so glad it helped you because this dressing is really delicious! Please tell me how it turned out, when you make it 🙂
There’s really nothing quite like roasted garlic. This looks delicious!
I’m also a fan 🙂 Thank you, Ahu!
Ooh, awesome! I love the incorporation of cashews here. Will have to try this 🙂
Thank you, Sasha! I like to add cashews in this type of sauces. The consistency is just perfect!