This creamy Cilantro Lime Sauce recipe is the dipping and dressing sauce of your dreams. It's loaded up with fresh garlic, zingy cilantro, tart lime, and spicy jalapeño peppers. Think of ranch dressing only better. Once you try it you'll want to drizzle it on your tacos, nachos, burritos, salads, everything you can think of.
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❤️ Why you'll love this recipe
- It takes less than 10 minutes to make. So easy to throw together and keep in the refrigerator.
- This sauce adds a creamy zingy taste to everything. Pair it with your favorite south of the border dishes.
- You control the spiciness, richness, and flavor of the sauce. Whatever is your favorite ingredient you may increase it.
Drizzle this cilantro lime crema on fish, chicken, salmon, pork, fries, roasted veggies, nachos, tacos, eat it with a spoon— YES! it’s THAT good my friends.
🛒 Ingredients
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Note: The full list of this Cilantro Lime Sauce recipe ingredients with their amounts and options are listed in the recipe card below.
- Cilantro -- adds a bright citrusy flavor.
- Limes -- gives the sauce the tang and zest plus it enhances the cilantro flavor.
- Jalapeños -- provides the spiciness to the sauce.
- Green Onions -- adds a mild sweet onion flavor.
- Garlic -- flavors the dressing and sauce.
- Mayonnaise -- adds the cream base.
- Sour Cream -- this also add to the creamy base.
- Salt -- brings out all of the other flavors.
🗒 Instructions
Note: This is an overview of the instructions. The full instructions are in the Cilantro Lime Sauce recipe card below.
Food processor method
- Place the cilantro, jalapeños, garlic, green onions into the bowl of food processor. Pulse until finely chopped.
- Add in the sour cream, mayonnaise, lime juice, lime zest, and salt.
- Process the ingredients until well combined and smooth.
- Serve the Lime Cilantro Sauce with your favorite foods.
Blender method
- Place the cilantro, jalapeños, garlic, green onions into the bowl of your blender. Pulse until finely chopped.
- Add in the sour cream, mayonnaise, lime juice, lime zest, and salt.
- Blend the ingredients until well combined and smooth.
- Serve the Lime Cilantro Sauce with your favorite foods. The crema is especially good on tacos.
🔪 Equipment
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You’ll need the following items to make this zesty Cilantro Jalapeño Sauce recipe successfully.
🤔 FAQs
These are the questions we are most frequently asked about making this Cilantro Lime Sauce Recipe.
Cilantro lime sauce (which is also called cilantro lime dressing or cilantro lime crema) is a blended creamy sauce. It uses cilantro, lime juice, garlic, and sour cream as the primary flavors. This recipe is made with cilantro, green onion (or scallions), garlic, lime juice, lime zest, salt, sour cream, and mayonnaise.
These are the Ingredients for Cilantro Lime Dressing: Sour cream, Greek yogurt, lime juice, honey, olive oil, mayonnaise, cilantro, garlic powder, salt and pepper.
Cilantro has a refreshingly complex but delicate flavor with a hint of pepper, mint, and lemon. Cilantro brightens up dishes. It's potent while fresh, yet the flavors of cilantro mellow considerably when heated.
The sauce is as spicy as you want to make it. Most of the heat comes from the white interior veins of the pepper, also known as the ribs or membrane. Removing these parts will tone down the heat of the dish. This balance of spiciness, but without extreme heat makes the jalapeño the most popular chili pepper in the United States
👩🏻🍳 Tips
When you work with hot peppers, be sure to wear protective rubber gloves. The seeds and veins of hot peppers are where most of the heat resides. The veins are also called ribs and membranes. The oils on the seeds and veins will stay on your skin and they are difficult to wash off.
📚 Variations
- Make it creamier. This sauce is very creamy from the sour cream and mayonnaise, but if you'd like it creamier plus add some healthy fat to the mix, blend in some fresh avocado.
- Lighten it up. You can lower the calories by swapping the sour cream for plain Greek yogurt and a lighter fat mayonnaise.
- Make it vegan. If you prefer, you may swap the sour cream and mayo for dairy free versions of each.
- Use a different herb. Although we love the distinct flavor of cilantro we know that some people don't care for it. If you don't like it, feel free to swap it out for basil or parsley.
- Make it spicier. Swap one or both jalapeños with serrano peppers or add a bit of cayenne pepper to the creamy sauce.
🥫 Storage
Leftover cilantro lime sauce will last in an airtight container in the fridge for about a week. We don't recommend freezing it because the sour cream and mayonnaise will separate and become watery when you thaw the sauce.
📗 Related Recipes
Creamy sauces are our jam, that's why we love our Easy Creamy Guacamole. Another creamy dipping sauce that has a Mediterranean flair is our Baba Ghanoush recipe. Try it with Flatbread. It tastes amazing.
If you like a chunky type salsa, then our Smokin' Hot Italian Avocado Salsa is what you want.
🍽 Serve with
This creamy lime sauce is delicious drizzled on our Crockpot Taco Chicken. And if you'd like to jazz up your fish, slather on some of this delicious sauce on our Lime grilled Halibut or Lime marinated Mahi Mahi.
If salad is more your style, instead of the zesty ranch dressing we use on this Southwest Cole Slaw recipe, use the Cilantro lime dressing.
And you've got to try this amazing tangy sauce with our Crunchy Fried Tomato recipe.
📞 Chiacchierata (chat)
We originally made our Cilantro Lime Sauce recipe to go with our pulled pork tacos. Once we tasted our baked potato wedges dunked in the sauce, we knew we'd found an amazing recipe we were going to make often.
What's new? Check out my All Our Way Store on Amazon. We'll be adding more items we love and use or wish we had to make cooking fun and easy.
📝 Recipe Card
This sauce makes a perfect compliment to any spicy meat. You'll need to make a double or triple batch because once you, your family, and friends get a taste they'll be wanting to use it on everything.
If you love this recipe please give it 5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.
Cilantro Lime Sauce and Dressing
Ingredients
- ¼ cup Cilantro cup firmly packed
- 2 Jalapeños ** check notes roughly chopped
- ¼ cup Green onions chopped
- 2 Garlic cloves
- 1 cup Mayonnaise
- ¼ cup Sour cream
- 2 Tablespoons Lime juice
- 1 Zest from lime
- ½ teaspoon Kosher salt
Equipment Needed
- Cuisinart Food Processor or blender
Instructions
The instructions for the Food Processor or Blender are the same.
- Place cilantro, jalapeños, garlic, and green onions into the bowl of a food processor or the blender.
- Pulse or blend until finely chopped
- Add in sour cream, mayonnaise, lime juice, lime zest, and salt.
- Process or blend until smooth.
- Taste and add more salt, if necessary.
- Serve with tacos, fish, chicken, as a dip with chips, or a salad dressing. It's delicious with everything!!
Notes
- Make it creamier. This sauce is very creamy from the sour cream and mayonnaise, but if you'd like it creamier plus add some healthy fat to the mix, blend in some fresh avocado.
- Lighten it up. You can lower the calories by swapping the sour cream for plain Greek yogurt and a lighter fat mayonnaise.
- Make it vegan. If you prefer, you may swap the sour cream and mayo for dairy free versions of each.
- Use a different herb. Although we love the distinct flavor of cilantro we know that some people don't care for it. If you don't like it, feel free to swap it out for basil or parsley.
- Make it spicier. Swap one or both jalapeños with serrano peppers or add a bit of cayenne pepper to the creamy sauce.
