Get ready for summer salads with this fresh creamy lemon salad dressing! Our lemon dressing is dairy free and is made without tahini (so it’s safe for sesame allergies), and you can make it thick for dipping or thinner for drizzling.
If you enjoy all kinds of salads in the warmer months, you’re going to love our delicious creamy lemon salad dressing! This dressing is so yummy on chopped salads plus you can make it thick for dipping cut veggies as well.
I wanted to make a lemon dressing and since I’m not really a big fan of sweet salad dressings, I made this lemon dressing savory with no added sugars (except what might happen to be in the mayo).
Unlike a lot of dairy free creamy lemon dressings, this one is made without tahini or sesame, so those with sesame allergies can still enjoy this recipe without finding substitutions.
Our lemon dressing is:
- Dairy free
- Soy free
- Egg free
- Vegan
- Peanut and tree nut free
- Sesame free
How to make creamy lemon salad dressing
This recipe is super easy to make, but we’ll still give you an overview of the steps to make it (the full recipe card is at the end of the blog post):
- Wash and zest your fresh lemon. I use a grater or a fine microplane for finer and smaller zest.
- Juice the lemon and add 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice to a bowl.
- Whisk in the mayo and the full flavored olive oil.
- Whisk in the seasonings and spices. You can also add 1 Tablespoon of water if you want this dressing to be a bit thinner for drizzling (this will thicken a bit as it sits).
- Store in an airtight container or jar.
Brands of allergy friendly mayo
Since this recipe doesn’t use sour cream or real dairy, most of the creaminess in this dressing is from the mayo. You’ll want to make sure that you can find a good mayo that fits your food allergies.
I have egg and soy allergies or intolerances, which are both used very often in commercial mayos. Fortunately there are quite a few brands on the market now that are both egg free and soy free!
That wasn’t the case about 10 years ago when it was very hard to find good allergy friendly mayo in our smallish town. I would often put hummus on my kid’s sandwiches. Needless to say, my kids were less than enthusiastic about that and were pretty glad when we finally found a mayo they could have.
If you can have eggs, you can definitely make your own mayo. But if you can’t have eggs (like me), here are a few good store bought mayos that are egg free and soy free:
- Good & Gather vegan mayo
- Green Garden plant based mayo
- Hellman’s vegan mayo (this is the one we used when I tested this recipe).
These are all the ones that we have tried personally and like, but we have a list of many other allergy friendly mayo brands in our soy free cooking post.
Check out our other salad and salad dressing recipes!
Creamy Lemon Salad Dressing (Dairy Free)
Ingredients
- Zest of 1 lemon
- 2 Tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice
- ¾ cup egg free and soy free mayo
- 3 Tablespoons full flavored olive oil
- 1 teaspoon brown mustard
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
- Zest your fresh lemon into a medium bowl.
- Juice the lemon, and measure 2 Tablespoons of juice into the bowl.
- Whisk into the lemon juice the mayo, olive oil, brown mustard, and spices.
- You can leave this thick, or whisk in 1-2 Tablespoons of water to thin it out slightly for drizzling over salads.
- Store in an airtight container in the fridge.
Nutrition
Sarah Jane Parker is the founder, recipe creator, and photographer behind The Fit Cookie. She’s a food allergy mom and allergy friendly food blogger of 12 years based in Wyoming. Sarah is also an ACSM Certified Personal Trainer, ACE Certified Health Coach, Revolution Running certified running coach, and an ACE Certified Fitness Nutrition Specialist