Spicy Chipotle Salad Dressing

Spicy chipotle salad dressing could be your next 'everyday dressing.' But as you'll discover that it’s so much more – vegan, dairy-free, nut-free, oil-free, and irresistible. Yes, all that!

Table of Contents

• ⭐ Recipe Highlights
• 📋 Ingredients / Substitutions
• 🥄 Pro Tips / Notes
• 🥣 Get Dressing Creative
• 🍴 Serving Suggestions
• 🧾 Related Recipes

⭐ Recipe Highlights

Creamy with Southwestern flavors, this dressing is a tasty addition to taco salad, cauliflower tacos, or tempeh tacos – anywhere you want a slice of chipotle spice. It’s also exceptional with a simple side salad or slathered over slices of avocado.

📋 Ingredients / Substitutions

• Plant milk - I used oat but use whatever you have on hand.
• Flax seeds – It’s possible to use chia seeds, but flax seeds are probably easier to find. Grab a bag, and I’ll tell you how to prep them.
• Lemon juice – Nothing wakes a recipe up like lemon juice. If all else fails here, use lime juice. The flavor won’t be the same, but that will keep with the Southwestern theme.
• Apple cider vinegar – Sweet, fruity apple cider vinegar works with lemon juice to brighten the flavor. Can’t find it? My first impulse is to add more lemon juice, but if you want more vinegar flavor, go for rice wine vinegar.
• Dates or date paste – Hello, my favorite natural sweetener. If you have date paste on hand, dip a spoon in. If not, use a few dates (I used 3 small, pitted dates to test this).
• Garlic – Garlic, with its own brand of spicy sweetness, is irreplaceable. I love fresh garlic with the chipotle flavor; however, garlic powder will be less sharp if you opt for that.  For 2 plump cloves of crushed garlic, use ¾ teaspoon garlic powder.
• Miso paste – Savory, earthy, tangy miso is rapidly becoming one of my favorite dressing ingredients. After using it in hoisin sauce a few weeks ago, I’m now officially hooked. 
• Tomato paste – It's for more than for making the color prettier; tomato paste adds sweetness.
• Chipotle powder – It’s chipotle dressing, after all! Now, I used chipotle flakes that I ground into a powder. If you can find the powder, use that. I can’t seem to get it, so I just made my own on the spot.
• Cumin – Just a pinch. Cumin is warm and earthy.

🥄 Pro Tips / Notes

Guess what? You can make a thick and creamy dressing without relying on nuts or oil as a thickener. What’s the secret? Flax seeds. Ok, maybe not so secret since it’s already listed in the ingredients.

There is a trick about flax seeds – they need to be ground if your goal is thickening. You could spend hours waiting for whole flax seeds to do anything to a dressing or soup. Who has that kinda time?

Grab a spice grinder. You need 2 tablespoons of seeds for 1 tablespoon ground. Grind extra for this recipe in case it’s too thin.

There’s no real magic for making this dressing. You want to toss everything into the blend and hit the ‘go’ button. Depending on how high speed your blender, you might not even need to dice the dates or garlic.

Add ½ a cup of plant milk to start, blend it, and then check the consistency. It may depend on what you’re using the dressing for. Thicker for a dip and thinner for mixing into a salad. That decision? All yours!

🥣 Get Dressing Creative

This is a great dressing to get creative with. You can adjust the tomato paste or substitute sun-dried tomatoes for a deeper flavor. Consider using a chipotle chili in Adobo sauce (or 2). Try using a good chili powder with lime rather than lemon, and you’ve got a new flavor.

Give recipe tweaking a try. Because we aren’t using nuts for this one, the ‘screw-up’ cost is low. And as long as you make minor tweaks and then taste it before adding more, you can't get too far off the road.

Split it up, and do some testing. The dressing keeps for several days in the refrigerator, so you can sleep on it – not the salad dressing, silly, (don't sleep on that), the ideas.

🍴 Serving Suggestions

This kind of dressing is perfect for a straight-up salad of greens or with added ingredients such as beans, corn, or smashed tortilla chips. As mentioned, it's also great with tacos or refried black beans in a wrap.

Store unused dressing in a bottle with a lid or airtight container. Keep it in the refrigerator for 3-4 days. Give it a shake or stir before serving.

🧾 Related Recipes

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