Healthy Vegan Caesar Salad Dressing (with Sunflower Seeds!)

This Healthy Vegan Caesar Salad Dressing is made by blending sunflowers seeds, nutritional yeast, and a few other key ingredients to make the creamiest, dreamiest, garlicky and slightly tangy caesar dressing that you’re going to want to eat by the spoonful! Plus, it’s dairy-free and we use no anchovies! It’s delicious on grain bowls, wraps or as a dip for veggies!

Move over, store-bought salad dressings! This healthy vegan caesar dressing is about to knock your socks off, it’s that good.

And yes, I’m totally down for a store-bought salad dressing in a pinch, but it’s hard for me to get on board all the time when homemade ones are this quick and easy to make!

And did I mention how absolutely mouthwatering this creamy caesar dressing is?

We take sunflower seeds and blend them until they’re perfectly smooth with nutritional yeast for a slightly cheesy flavor, garlic, lemon juice, fresh pepper and a few other key ingredients to get that classic caesar dressing flavor, without the dairy or anchovies!

I’ve tested this caesar dressing so many times that I’ve lost count because I’ve been using it myself for years. That means that it’s ready to use on pretty much any salad recipe, but is also delicious as a dip for veggies, in a nourish bowl, or drizzled on a wrap!

If you’re skeptical of using sunflower seeds in a salad dressing, don’t be! I swear you can’t even taste them, but they make this dressing sooooo silky and creamy.

If you’re looking for the perfect salad to pair this healthy caesar salad dressing with, may I suggest my 20-Minute Dairy-Free Caesar Pasta Salad?! It’s the perfect healthy and filling weeknight meal!

So What Makes This Caesar Salad Dressing Healthy?

As a Registered Dietitian, you know I’m no stranger to healthy salad dressings (like, hello, have you tried my Quick 5-Minute Lemon Garlic Vinaigrette?!), and this one is no exception! It’s healthy because:

• We use sunflower seeds as the base, which are packed with protein, fiber and healthy fats!
• Nutritional yeast acts as a substitute for cheese and has B vitamins in it.
• Because it tastes so good, it means you’re actually going to want to eat more salads!

Wondering What Kind of Sunflower Seeds to Use?

Great question! Raw, unsalted, and hulled sunflower seeds work best in this recipe.

I’ve tested it with roasted, salted sunflower seeds, and the taste is a little stronger on the sunflower-seed side, but they will work in a pinch!

If you don’t have any sunflower seeds on hand I’ve also tested this recipe with raw cashews and it turns out perfectly!

Let’s Blend Up Some Caesar Dressing!

The key to this blended salad dressing recipe is using a high-speed blender. If your blender isn’t super high-powered, you can soak the sunflower seeds for about 8 hours to soften them before making this recipe.

Connect with Lauren

I hope you love this recipe as much as I do! If you try it, let me know what you think by leaving a rating and a review in the comments below. You can also find 60 other delicious, easy plant-based recipes in my cookbook, The Simple Vegan Kitchen! 

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Did you try this recipe? Make sure to leave a review, take a photo and tag me at @tastingtothrive_rd so I can see!