Filled with bright herbs, this green goddess dressing is the perfect summer (or anytime) dip for veggies, grilled or roasted chicken or fish. Thin it out a bit and it's a great alternative for ranch dressing on your favorite salads. This is one of my favorite, most versatile sauces to keep on hand!

Green goddess dressing
- Total Time: 15 minutes
- Yield: ~1 ½ cups
Description
Filled with bright herbs, this green goddess dressing is the perfect summer (or anytime) dip for veggies, grilled or roasted chicken or fish. Thin it out a bit and it's a great alternative for ranch dressing on your favorite salads. This is one of my favorite, most versatile sauces to keep on hand!
Ingredients
- 1 cup mayonnaise (store-bought or homemade. See notes for homemade)
- 2 cups / 1 oz basil leaves
- 1 cup / .2 oz roughly chopped green onions
- ½ cup / ½ oz parsley
- 1 garlic clove
- 2 teaspoons anchovy paste (or 2 anchovy fillets)
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- ¼ cup yogurt or sour cream
Instructions
- Add 1 cup mayonnaise, 1 garlic clove and 2 teaspoons anchovy paste to food processor. Pulse a few times to combine and get the garlic going
- Add 2 cups basil, 1 cup green onions, ½ cup parsley, ½ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon black pepper and 1 tablespoon lemon juice. Mix until fully combined and smooth. Stir in ¼ cup yogurt or sour cream
- The dressing will last in the fridge for a week.
Notes
- If you want to make homemade mayo for this (highly recommend!), start the recipe this way:
- Add egg and ¼ cup oil in food processor. Pulse a few times to blend. Turn the processor on low and sloooowly drizzle in another ¾ cup of oil. You want to make sure you add the oil slowly so that it emulsifies and creates mayo. Proceed with recipe (yes - you don't even have to clean out the processor!)
- Anchovies not your thing? That's fine! It just won't be a classic green goddess dressing. I promise you can't taste anything fishy, but you can totally leave it out. You might need to add a bit more salt and lemon to amp up the flavor of your finished dressing, so just keep tasting as you go
- Make this vegan with vegan mayo, no anchovies (replace with white miso if you'd like) and use coconut yogurt or milk instead of regular yogurt
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 5 minutes
- Category: Dressing
- Method: Blender
- Cuisine: Global
I've never met a green goddess dressing or dip I didn't love. Green goddess makes pretty much everything more delicious. Creamy, bright and packed with basil. All good things!
Also, it's called green goddess dressing. So really, that just very fun. Click here to jump to all the details!
You all know I love making dips and dressings from scratch. They're a fridge staple for me, and basically the back bone of any sort of meal prep I do. If you don't have time to make lunches and dinners for a whole week (I mean, who does?), just take 30 minutes to roast up some veggies and make this green goddess dressing. Maybe pick up a rotisserie chicken at the store. You're golden!
Which brings me to...
What to use green goddess dressing for
Literally everything, guys. I'm barely kidding.
You can, of course, use it as a dip for veggies. That's great. But you know what's even better? Fries? Dip those bad boys in this green goddess dressing and come back and thank me.
A few other ideas:
- Switch up the good ol' kale caesar salad and use this dressing instead. This blackened shrimp version would be bomb too.
- Cook up the easiest salmon sheet pan dinner and top with green goddess
- Roast (or maybe poach??) some chicken and just dip it here. I'm 100% serious - it's a great snack.
It will stay good in the fridge for a week (even two), so it's really great to use throughout the week to amp up all your meals.
How to make green goddess dressing
First, let's talk ingredients:
- Mayonnaise. Yea, this is a mayo-based sauce. You guys know I don't love mayo, but it's pretty important here. Technically, you could replace it with greek yogurt, but that will change the taste a bit (although I do add a little at the end!). When it comes to mayo, you can definitely use store-bought, but homemade is a really great option here because you have to drag out that food processor or blender anyway! The notes in the recipe above walk you through that homemade version. It's quite easy!
- Herbs. There are a million and one recipes out there for green goddess dressing, and I swear they'll all give you a different combo of herbs to use. But that's the point! In my opinion, basil is the only non-negotiable. After that, use whatever you have on hand. My favorite mix is basil + green onions + parsley, but I've used cilantro instead of parsley many times and it's great. If you have other herbs like thyme or dill, throw those in too! Just be a little more conservative with those stronger guys.
- Anchovy. DON'T FIGHT ME ON THIS. Green goddess dressing is like the cousin of caesar salad dressing, so the anchovies are a real thing here. I like to use anchovy paste because it's so easy to keep on hand, but tinned anchovies are obviously perfect. Just use two. If you really can't stand the idea of using anchovies, or want to try to make this vegan, you can replace with white miso or just leave it out completely and add a little more lemon and salt to taste. You'll lose this wonderful savory flavor, but the dressing will still be super good.
- Lemon + garlic. Classic. Just a little of both is all you need!
- Yogurt/sour cream. I like to add a little at the end to up the creamy factor and add a little tang. If you want a thinner dressing, feel free to replace the yogurt with milk, buttermilk or even a little water!
Making the dressing could not be more simple - you basically just have to blend everything together!
I start with the mayo, garlic and anchovy to combine those and keep from over mixing the herbs later. Add those herbs and pulse a few times to chop everything up. Then just let is mix for a minute or so until everything is combined. Lastly, mix in your yogurt or sour cream by hand to keep it creamy and perfect.
And that's it! This green goddess dressing will keep in the fridge for at least a week, but up to 10 days if it even lasts that long!
Carolyn
Delicious and I didn’t even have enough parsley. Thank you for the recipe.
Mansee Muzumdar
Glad this worked out for you! Thanks for the comment!