Honey Cilantro Lime Sauce

I went to a restaurant recently that is known for its cilantro lime sauce. It was pretty delicious, but I realized that I’ve been making something very similar for years.

This is a simple blended sauce that I originally made as a salad dressing. It gets its flavor from cilantro, lime juice, garlic, and honey. I add some plain Greek yogurt for creaminess and a little bit of avocado oil for richness. I’ve experimented over the years with other things — avocado instead of yogurt, adding spices like cumin and chili powder. Occasionally I’ll add a jalapeno if I have one laying around. But I’ve never found any of those changes to be enough to stick — the avocado gives it a gummy texture, and spices can sometimes take away from the cilantro and lime flavor. None of them are bad necessarily, just not good enough to be permanent.

How do you use this cilantro lime sauce? My favorite is as a salad dressing. It is perfect in a taco salad with black beans, corn, and crunchy tortilla chips. It also makes a delicious dip for tortilla chips alongside some salsa. Seriously — make this and put it out at your next party next to your chips and salsa and watch it disappear. It’s also great on grilled fish or shrimp. One of my favorite ways to eat it if I have a jar in the fridge is to drizzle some on a ripe avocado as a snack. You can adjust the consistency to whatever you’re making by adding more yogurt for a dip or a bit of water or more oil for a salad dressing.

I’ve been making this so long that I don’t really measure anything. I just throw everything in the blender and taste it. Since most of the ingredients are fresh, sometimes the flavor isn’t exactly the same. In that case, I’ll add another clove of garlic, some more lime juice, or honey. And while I’m not against bottled lime juice as a whole, I’ve found that this sauce is always better with fresh limes. Just something to keep in mind.