This green goddess dressing is exactly what we need right now. It’s creamy, tangy, and fully loaded with fresh, herbal flavor. I’ve savored it by the spoonful while imagining sunny days ahead.
The Green Goddess is going to carry us through to spring. We’re going to make it. I can feel it.
I put some soup recipe development on hold when I finalized this dressing. I’ll figure it out soon enough (hint: it’s also green). I’m too busy drizzling this versatile dressing over anything and everything.
The funny thing about this green goddess dressing recipe is that it’s so very simple. I tried adding lemon juice and olive oil, and they only distracted from the beautiful combination of good Greek yogurt and fresh herbs.
In fact, you can use any combination of fresh herbs for this recipe. That leftover parsley and cilantro in the fridge? Let’s use ’em up.
Green Goddess Dressing Ingredients
This salad dressing differs from most other green goddess dressings, but the flavor and texture remains so similar. Typically, you’ll find mayonnaise, lemon, and anchovies on the ingredients list. This recipe relies on Greek yogurt for tang and creaminess instead.
Greek Yogurt
High-quality whole-milk yogurt makes this dressing spectacular. I splurged on Straus Family Creamery and it’s just so good. I suspect regular plain yogurt would work well, too, though it will be more runny.
Fresh Herbs
Now we’re talking! This dressing calls for an overflowing cup of fresh, leafy herbs. Here are some notes on your options.
Tarragon: If you’re looking for classic green goddess flavor, be sure to use some tarragon. Its licorice-like flavor is strong, so limit the tarragon to about 2 tablespoons (or a small handful).
Chives or green onion: Chives are more classic, but green onion works almost nearly as well. To avoid overpowering your dressing with oniony flavor, limit these ingredients to about 1/4 cup.
Basil, parsley, cilantro, dill and/or mint: Use these to fill up the rest of your cup. Any one of these herbs (or any combination) will work beautifully. For dressing that would be suitable with Mexican meals, try using a lot of cilantro (and maybe add a fresh jalapeño—see recipe note). Dill lovers, try an all-dill dressing and drizzle it over potatoes.
Garlic
Just one small-to-medium clove—no more! In sauces and dressings, garlic often grows in intensity as it rests.
Salt and Pepper
Plenty of each—dressing should be bordering on salty when it’s your main seasoning for fresh produce. This dressing loves black pepper!
Salad Serving Suggestions
This herbaceous dressing is so versatile. Build a salad with any of these ingredients:
- Almonds, pepitas or sunflower seeds
- Bell peppers
- Carrots, shaved or thinly sliced
- Cooked chickpeas or lentils
- Cucumber
- Feta or goat cheese
- Fresh, leafy greens—including butter lettuce, baby gem, romaine and spring greens
- Red onion
- Snow peas or snap peas
- Tomatoes
- Radishes
You can also use this dressing as a veggie dip for any of the above suggestions.
Please let me know how your dressing turns out in the comments! I love hearing from you.
Looking for more homemade salad dressings? Here are a few more favorites:
- Carrot Ginger Dressing or Ginger Salad Dressing
- Creamy Tahini Dressing
- Fresh Mint Dressing
- How to Make Vinaigrette (Plus 3 Essential Variations!)
- Sunshine Salad Dressing
Easy Green Goddess Dressing
- Author:
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Total Time: 5 minutes
- Yield: 1 ¼ cups 1x
- Category: Salad dressing
- Method: Blended
- Cuisine: American
This homemade green goddess dressing recipe is so easy to make! It’s creamy, fresh, completely delicious—and a great way to use up your leafy herbs. Recipe yields about 1 ¼ cups dressing; multiply if desired.
Ingredients
- 1 cup plain Greek yogurt, preferably full-fat (made with whole milk)
- 1 cup lightly packed fresh herbs (tender stems are fine): use cilantro, parsley, dill, basil and/or mint, with up to ¼ cup chives or green onion (sliced into ½″ segments)
- Optional: Up to 2 tablespoons fresh tarragon leaves
- 1 medium clove garlic, roughly chopped
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- Lots of freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Combine all of the ingredients in the bowl of a food processor. Process until smooth and green, with tiny flecks of herbs.
- Taste, and add more salt or pepper if desired. Use as desired, or cover and refrigerate for later. This dressing will keep well in the fridge for 5 to 7 days.
Notes
Make it vegan: Make my tahini dressing in a food processor, adding the herbs suggested above (same quantity).
Make it spicy: Add jalapeño! Remove and discard the seeds and ribs from a medium jalapeño. Roughly chop the pepper flesh, and blend half of it with the other ingredients. Blend, taste, and add even more if you’d like.
Recommended equipment: A small to medium-sized food processor is perfect for making this dressing, such as this 11-cup Cuisinart (affiliate link). Or make it in a blender—you’ll likely need to double the recipe to gain enough traction. As a last resort, you could finely chop all of the ingredients by hand.
Vegetable enthusiast. Dog lover. I'm probably making a big mess in my Kansas City kitchen right now. 
pamela
Thank you for the greens! You mentioned you are working on a green soup…I would love that. We used to live near a place that had a great take out green soup – it was SO healthy, and I haven’t been able to recreate it. So I am looking forward to green soup.
Thank you, I love your recipes
Kate
Thank you, Pamela! I’m sharing a creamy broccoli soup tomorrow. You might enjoy this green soup—the photos don’t do it justice!
r.a.
The chives and tarragon are starting to come back in the garden and a pack of dill seeds sit on the table needing to be planted. When all are ready to use this summer, I will be making this!
Kate
Let me know what you think when you do!
Penelope
I am making this dressing tonight with a green bean salad I am so happy you made this without mayonnaise, it looks delicious!
Lauren Lagergren
Finally, a recipe for dressing without vinegar! Can’t wait to try this and add it to my repertoire of dressings.
★★★★★
Claire
Do you have any suggestions on how to make this non-dairy? I know there are non-dairy yogurts but they don’t seem to have the tanginess of yogurt. And they never have the consistency of greek yogurt.
Kate
Hey Claire! I came up with a vegan version that’s similarly creamy, tangy and delicious. Check the recipe notes. :)
Joshua
Also kite hill makes a lovely dairy free greek yogurt I sub in many recipes!
Janine
Do you use all these herbs together or select a few. I am wondering how dill and cilantro would work together for example.
Kate
Hi Janine! I’ve tried various combinations (including dill and cilantro) and you truly cannot go wrong.
Shelli
I absolutely love your recipes. I have a dairy allergy, so I attempt to find ways to substitute dairy, which the recipes are very versatile and can handle dairy substitutions. Thank you!
★★★★★
Kate
I’m happy you think so, Shelli!
4waystoyummy
Looks good Kate…now all I need is some garden lettuce! Thanks!
★★★★★
Rebecca B.
You are the only person who can make me crave salads! Can’t wait to try this!
Kate
I will take that as a compliment! I hope you love this one.
Sandra
Made this today and it is so good! I added lots of black pepper and a little red pepper for an extra kick! This will probably become my go to dressing!!
★★★★★
Kate
Sounds delicious! Thank you for your review, Sandra.
Danielle
I can’t stop licking the food processor! Sign of a great dressing… Made this with parsley and green onions. Super simple, super decadent, super joyful!
★★★★★
Kate
I love to hear that, Danielle!
Beth Park
I love the flavor of this ‘dressing’ but felt it came out more like a ‘dip’ as it was pretty thick. I used some lemon juice but any other suggestions to make it a little more pourable?
★★★★
Kate
Hey Beth! You can thin it with a bit of water. If that dilutes the flavor, another pinch of salt should make up for it.
Beth Park
Thanks so much, I’ll give it a try!
Mary Jo
What a great use of my green house full of fresh herbs. The yogurt gives a great tang and not heavy like the commercial Green Goddess. Having this dressing on my early spring garden greens with a quiche makes a perfect meal.
THANK YOU.
★★★★★
Ana
green go green!!!! a beautiful and delicious recipe, thanks for posting
★★★★
Kate
You’re welcome!
Kat
I made this dressing last week for the first time and have made it again twice since. It’s so delicious, healthy and easy. Best green goddess dressing by far. Please keep all of the excellent recipes coming!
★★★★★
Kate
I love you have made it so much already, Kat. I appreciate it!
Neha
Hi lovely! Your recipes are finger licking good! Can this dressing be frozen?
★★★★★
Kate
Hi Neha! That’s a good question. I haven’t tried. Please report back if you do!
Kay
DELICIOUS! I changed it a bit with what I had on hand:
I used 3/4 cup goat milk yogurt, chives and basil. Then used the suggested garlic, salt and pepper.
It was just DREAMY! Thanks for the great recipe!!
★★★★★
Kate
Thank you for sharing your variation! I’m glad you enjoyed it, Kay.
Natalie Hudson
Hi Kate! Just want to let you know the affiliate link for the Cuisinart isn’t working. Also just want to say you are so talented, and your recipes are on regular rotation at my house. I have your cookbook,and I’ve been a fan of yours since the beginning. Keep up the awesome work!
★★★★★
Kate
Thanks so much, Natalie! I’ll look into that.
Hissar
Thanks for the recipe today i make this at home
★★★★★
Sadra
I just wanted to let you know that this dressing, made with fat free yogurt is zero (yes, that’s ZERO) points on the new Weight Watchers program. If you use low fat, it’s only 4 points for an entire cup!
★★★★★
Maddie
Hi Kate (and Cookie!) I LOVE this dressing. It really tastes decadent. I used parsley, cilantro, and basil, as well as tarragon which I love. I agree that it turns out pretty thick, even with the 2% yogurt I used. I added a little lemon juice, and when that wasn’t enough, some buttermilk. I suppose water would work fine too. Just finished a big bowl of salad and couldn’t believe how something so tasty could be so healthy!
★★★★★
Kate
I’m glad you are loving it and made it work with what you had!
Susan E A Young
Thank you for an excellent tasty dressing which so easy to make.
Also enjoyed your broccoli and cheddar soup yesterday.
★★★★★
Ruth
Love this dressing! I added a little lemon and a small amount of local honey. So good, thanks for creating this and sharing.
★★★★★
Kate
You’re welcome, Ruth!
Ken
I don’t due creams or sauces but was making the wife a sea food salad which included grilled lobster tail, crab claws and shrimp. Chose to leave my comfort zone and tried your recipe. After shopping for all ingredients at Whole Foods it wasn’t that hard to make.
Results; wife added to Italian meatballs today. She added it onto my chicken sandwich. She hasn’t stopped telling people how great it is. Pretty damn good. Thanks. Ken
★★★★★
Donna
This looks so lovely, if I used some dried herbs like dill what would the amount be? Thanks for this.
Kate
Hi Donna! Fresh work best here, but for dried it’s typically 1/3 the amount of the fresh quantity.
Donna
Thanks, my garden was just planted but I wanted to try this!
YUM!
Ann-Katrin
Hi Kate! So nice to meet you :) This is my first visit to your web site. I was looking for a recipe for a Green Goddess dressing and hope that I have found it now! I will give you a rating once my family has tried it. I will definitely try your Sunshine dressing as well. Love from Ann-Katrin in Gothenburg Sweden
Lucy
This is delicious! I didn’t have full fat Greek yogurt on hand, so I used mostly 2% and added a couple of tablespoons of sour cream. Served as a dip with radishes and sugar snap peas. Will definitely make again!
★★★★★
Val Veldhuyzen
Here in Canada my herb garden is just taking off. I made this recipe today – PHENOMENAL. I used 2 tablespoons of Tarragon and the 1 cup of herbs were a mix of basil, cilantro and parsley. My husband can’t stop eating it. Wishing I had doubled the recipe now. What a fantastic use of herbs. I used a 0% fat sour cream (the kind I buy) is thick like greek yogurt and I used little it of 1% buttermilk to thin.
Tiffany
This is such a great recipe, and it will definitely become a staple. I used basil and chives, and the result was delicious. The dressing is flavorful, but also delicate. Thank you for sharing! I’m excited to try out all of the other possible combinations!
★★★★★
SUZI
Not very goddess, I did not like it. An ordinary flavor without oil
★
Vanessa
I cannot wait to try this healthier version of green goddess dressing, thank you.
Machal
I’m wondering what I did wrong…my dressing turned out super thick. It’s more like a dip than a dressing. Seems like it needs olive oil to thin it out…?
Kate
I’m sorry to hear that! You could add a little oil or even a small bit of water to help thin it out.
Nicole
This was delicious! What an amazing and flexible way to use up herbs in the fridge. I did roughly half parsley and half cilantro along with the green onion, added about a tablespoon of dried dill, and didn’t have any tarragon, but it turned out really well. My plain yogurt isn’t as thick as Greek either but the consistency was still fine, and I’d love to try this again sometime soon with Greek yogurt for that dreamy texture.
★★★★★
Kate
Thank you for sharing! I’m happy you liked it with your won variation.
James
Isn’t this greek tzatziki sauce that’s blended? Same ingredients. The tzatziki sauce is usually white but if you blend it, it turns the light green
Kate
Hi James, from my experience they are different. How to Make Tzatziki
Maria
Love this green goddess dressing and variations! Yummy and healthy! I used pesto as herbs and dashes of the others I had on hand. Next time I will add a jalapeño. Great dip and sandwich spread too. Thank you.
★★★★★
Kay
Would you please explain what you mean by, “Scale 1x, 2x, 3x.” Does it mean I can simply double or treble all the ingredients in a recipe? I live in Australia and can usually figure out what you mean when you name some ingredients but this has me stumped. Thanks.
Kate
Yes, Kay! I’m sorry that was confusing.
Karen
Hi Kate! Just needing some clarification on the recipe. A total of 1 cup using a combination of the herbs, but is the 1/4 cup of green onion a part of that 1 cup of greens or in addition to the 1 cup of greens?
Kate
Hi! 1 cup combination with up to 1/4 of green onion. So yes, it is apart of the 1 cup. I hope that helps!
Steve
Fantastic!
★★★★★
Judy ARAZOZA
What is your thought on using fresh oregano? I have an abundance of it in my garden.
Kate
You could try it, although it can be quite strong. If you do, let me know what you think!