This easy 5-minute cilantro yogurt sauce is perfect on salads, grilled veggies, tacos, and more! Make a batch ahead of time and keep it in the fridge to use as needed during the week.
This easy, creamy cilantro yogurt sauce is my meal prep secret weapon. It's similar to a creamy pesto sauce, packs a TON of flavor, and gives a gorgeous pop of color to anything you serve it with.
Whip up a batch over the weekend and use it all week long on tacos, salads, grain bowls, salmon, veggies, you name it!
Editor's Note: This recipe was originally published in 2017 and updated in 2025 after additional testing. Changes include adding an avocado for a creamier texture, using water to thin the dressing as needed, and recommending a blender (as opposed to a food processor) for best results.
Ingredients overview
For a full ingredients list and exact quantities, scroll to the recipe card below.
- Fresh cilantro (also called fresh coriander) is the star of the show here. Trim away any browned or woody pieces, but you can leave the stems on!
- A clove of minced garlic adds a bit of bite to this sauce (you can skip it if you like).
- Avocado thickens the sauce and gives it a creamier texture. In our testing, adding an avocado made this dressing more consistent across different blenders, and helped it retain its creamy texture more effectively in the fridge.
- Water is used to thin out the sauce if needed. Tap water is fine!
Variations and Substitutions
This Greek yogurt sauce is VERY forgiving, so feel free to play around with the ratios and ingredients! Some of our favorite twists:
- Swap a handful of the cilantro for fresh spinach, kale, or arugula.
- Add a handful of walnuts or pistachios for some extra depth and a bit of texture.
- Use lemon juice instead of lime if you like.
- Add a few slices of jalapeño or roasted poblano pepper for a spicy upgrade.
- Use sour cream or plain yogurt in place of the Greek yogurt.
Step by step photos
Add everything but the water to a blender and pulse until smooth (you may need to pause once or twice to scrape down the sides of the blender).
With the blender running, slowly stream in water a Tablespoon or so at a time, until the sauce reaches a smooth, drizzle-able consistency.
How to use this creamy cilantro yogurt sauce
- Use it as the dressing for your favorite salads and grain bowls. You can thin this sauce out with a little bit of lime juice and olive oil if you like a thinner salad dressing (similar to our pesto salad dressing method!)
- Add a dollop to your protein of choice. This yogurt dressing is great alongside grilled salmon or other fish, kebabs, falafel, chicken, or steak!
- Use it as a dipping sauce for sliced veggies, crackers, and crudités.
- Drizzle it over your favorite tacos. (Need some inspo? We love these veggie breakfast tacos or this taco collection from Isabel Eats!)
- Use it as the dressing for your favorite pasta salad.
Recipe Ideas
Drizzle this cilantro yogurt dressing over these dishes, or serve on the side for dipping!
FAQs
Store this cilantro yogurt sauce in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days.
This dressing freezes pretty well, though we recommend making it fresh if you can! Keep it in an airtight container in the freezer for 3-4 months, and defrost overnight in the fridge when you're ready for it. The texture can get a little bit grainy after a stint in the freezer, so you may want to blend it again (we use an immersion blender for this) after defrosting to bring it back to a smooth consistency.
Yes! Use your favorite non-dairy Greek yogurt here. We also have a dairy-free cilantro pesto that's very similar to this recipe! Alternatively, you can use cilantro in place of the parsley in our vegan lemon tahini dressing.
Yes! This recipe works best in smaller food processors, and you'll likely need to scrape the sides down a few times to make sure everything blends smoothly. You can also make this dressing in a large jar with a stick blender or immersion blender.
📖 Recipe
Cilantro Yogurt Sauce
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 0 minutes
- Total Time: 5 minutes
- Yield: Makes 1 ½ cups 1x
- Category: Sauce
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegetarian
Description
This easy, creamy cilantro yogurt sauce is perfect on tacos, salads, and more!
Ingredients
- 3 heaping cups fresh cilantro (you can eyeball this - just use three generous handfuls!)
- 1 ripe avocado, pitted and removed from peel
- 1 cup plain Greek yogurt
- 1 clove garlic, peeled
- 2 Tablespoons lime juice
- kosher salt, to taste
- ¼ cup water (you may not need it all)
Instructions
- Place cilantro, avocado, Greek yogurt, garlic, and lime juice in a blender with a pinch of kosher salt. Blend until the sauce begins to smooth out, about 30 seconds. You may need to pause and scrape down the sides of the blender, then pulse again to form a smooth sauce.
- With the blender running, slowly stream in water about a Tablespoon at a time, until dressing reaches your desired drizzle-able consistency. You may not need all of the water.
- Serve immediately or store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days.
Notes
Additions and Substitutions. Use lemon juice instead of lime juice. Add a few slices of jalapeño or roasted poblano pepper for a bit of spice. Swap a handful of the cilantro for spinach or kale. Add a handful of walnuts or pistachios for a bit of depth and texture. Omit the garlic if you aren't a raw garlic fan.
Serving suggestions. Use this dressing on salads, grain bowls, tacos, grilled veggies and more! It's great on grilled fish (we love it with salmon), chicken, or steak, and it's also excellent with homemade crab cakes.
Storing and freezing. Store sauce in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days, or in the freezer for 3-4 months. Defrost frozen sauce overnight in the fridge before using. The texture can get a little bit grainy after freezing: we recommend blending sauce with a hand blender once defrosted to smooth it out again.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 2 Tablespoons
- Calories: 57
- Sugar: 1.1 g
- Sodium: 108.7 mg
- Fat: 4.2 g
- Carbohydrates: 2.9 g
- Protein: 2.6 g
- Cholesterol: 3.1 mg
More Bright Summer Sauces
David Starnes
I make double, for half the sauce I toast fresh whole cumin until fragrant, put it in the spice grinder. Yummy Indian flair. If tomatoes are any good, I’ll chop,, deseeded Tomatoes into the sauce. Great to. Cool off hot spicy food.
Team Life As A Strawberry
We're so happy to hear you're loving this sauce. Cumin is a great addition!
David Starnes
Also good with freshly. Ground Cumin Ghorbanian an Indian vibe!
Team Life As A Strawberry
What a great addition!
Sarah B.
Do you de-stem the cilantro before putting it in the food processor or can you throw the entire thing in?
Sarah B.
Nevermind! Just saw your comment about being able to use the stems! Thanks 🙂
Lee G
Delicious recipe. It took about 15 minutes to make in my nutribullet. I served it with seabass and salmon and it tasted delicious. The only change I made is to use sour cream instead of greek yogurt.
d4v1d
Used this as the 'mayo' for chicken salad. perfect as is, and for my personal side of the table, a drop of tobasco was crowning glory.
Dana
I haven't made the pesto or yogurt sauce yet. I love cilantro and am excited to try these. Thank you.
Melinda
my sister told her son she would make the cupcakes for his wedding. AAAAhhh! He says there might be 150 people. I reluctantly told her I'd help. Is this possible for amateurs to pull off? Of course they are dreaming of several flavors and a professional look. I watched your videos on freezing individually wrapped cupcakes, is that crazy for this many cupcakes? And shouldn't we make minis?