My green goddess buttermilk dressing is packed full of parsley and green onions to give it its signature color, and jalapenos and garlic to give it a great kick! Not does this versatile sauce perk up a salad, but I love it as a sauce for seafood and grilled chicken. Thicken it up a bit and it’s a tasty party dip for carrot sticks and celery and other veggies.
Green goddess dressing is one of those classic recipes, and one I didn’t think about all that much until one day when I had some buttermilk to use up and I was trying to come up with ideas on what to do with it.
I do have a pile of buttermilk recipes, including a great buttermilk blue cheese dressing, but I wanted something new. Or at least something I hadn’t made before! This is why food blogging is a good fit for me – I love trying new recipes. 🙂
I started flipping through recipes trying to get some inspiration, when I saw a recipe for green goddess dressing using sour cream and I thought ‘why not buttermilk??’ So, I whipped up a batch, tasted it and decided it needed spice and way more parsley. Once I doubled the parsley, added another scallion, and threw in a jalapeno, I knew I had a great sauce and a great way to use up that buttermilk!
Not only is this green goddess buttermilk dressing a fun change from my basic olive oil and lemon juice salad dressing, but I seriously love it on shrimp, roasted potatoes, other roasted veggies, and grilled chicken. It’s spicy and creamy and tangy from the buttermilk and has a fresh taste from all the parsley.
So, take 10 minutes to whip up a batch (it doubles easily!) and pop it in the fridge to perk up your salads and spice up your dinners that week!
– Happy Eating, Annemarie
Spicy Green Goddess Buttermilk Dressing
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup mayonnaise
- 1/2 cup buttermilk
- 2 scallions, roughly chopped
- 1 small jalapeno, chopped
- 1/2 cup packed parsley leaves
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 anchovy fillet
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Add all ingredients to a food processor or blender and puree until smooth. Taste and add more salt and pepper as needed. If you are not sure how spicy you want the dressing, add half of the jalapeno to start and more if it's not spicy enough.
- You can use the dressing right away but for best flavor let it sit for 1-2 hours. The dressing keeps 4-5 days in the refrigerator.
Notes
- I find that mincing the garlic is important so that you don't get a big bite of unpureed garlic as you are eating.
- You can use a fresh jalapeno or used sliced, pickled jalapenos. I usually have pickled jalapenos on hand, so if I'm making this dressing from pantry ingredients, I used pickled. Also, I switch between anchovy fillets and anchovy paste, depending on what I have.
- Feel free to add a little more or less mayo or buttermilk to get the dressing to the thickness you want. A little more mayo is good if you want to use this as a dip.
Lizzie says
Anchovy, thank you very much, is absolutely critical to Green Goddess dressing/sauce. You don’t really taste it, but would miss it is it wasn’t there. I’ll use this over pan-grilled halibut, which, while elegant, is, well … kind of white. Great recipe!
justalittlebitofbacon says
I agree! I have several recipes where the anchovy is in the background but you would miss it even if you don’t think so. Thanks!