5-Minute Cilantro Lime Sauce
This zesty cilantro lime sauce is the perfect dipping sauce, dressing, or marinade and comes together in just 5-minutes! It’s packed with flavor from fresh cilantro, lime juice, garlic, and has a creamy smooth texture thanks to greek yogurt.
Why We Love This Recipe
What’s not to love about a vibrant & fresh sauce that comes together in a matter of minutes?
It’s packed with acidity, saltiness, fat from the greek yogurt, and an optional bit of spice from a jalapeño; a combination of flavors that is famously addicting.
Cilantro and lime are popular ingredients in many Puerto Rican recipes. Because of this, this recipe is a wonderful pairing for using as a dipping sauce/topping, dressing, or marinade.
We especially love serving it with tostones, pinchos de pollo, and empanadillas.
Ingredients
Here are the ingredients you will need to make this sauce:
- Cilantro, rinsed and towel dried
- Limes, juiced
- Clove garlic, peeled
- Avocado or olive oil
- Greek yogurt or sour cream
- Salt
- Pepper
- Optional: jalapeño or serano, with seeds removed
See recipe card for quantities.
Step by Step Instructions
Enjoy as a dipping sauce, dressing, or marinade!
What to Eat it With
This sauce goes well with so many different cuisines and dishes.
A few of my favorites being tacos, savory rice dishes (like this arroz con gandules), beans, grilled meat (try these pinchos de pollo) and seafood. It also makes a wonderful dressing on salads, especially coleslaw!
You can also try it out with these reader favorite recipes:
Substitutions & Additions
This sauce is very easy to modify. Here are some fun ideas on how to make it your own:
- Add more herbs – Throw ½ a cup of the dark green part of some green onions in the blender and enjoy an additional fresh, herbaceous bite in the sauce.
- Swap greek yogurt for sour cream – Feel free to use sour cream instead of greek yogurt if that’s what you have on hand or prefer!
- Vegan alternative – To keep this recipe plant based, you can use a plain vegan yogurt or sour cream.
You can also experiment with adding some additional spices to this recipe (like sazon or adobo seasoning) to amp up the flavors.
Equipment
You will need either a traditional standing blender or an immersion blender to make this cilantro lime sauce.
I really enjoy using my immersion blender, as it creates less dirty dishes and comes together quickly.
Storage
This sauce should keep in the fridge for up to 5 days, when stored in an air tight container or jar.
Marinade Tip
This cilantro lime sauce works beautifully as a marinade on chicken, red meat, and shrimp.
If using as a marinade, be sure to let it sit on the protein for at least 1 hour before cooking.
More Sauces We Love
Enjoy,
5-Minute Cilantro Lime Sauce
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 0 minutes
- Total Time: 5 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
- Category: Sauce, Dip, Marinade
- Method: Raw
- Cuisine: American, Latin
- Diet: Vegetarian
Description
This zesty cilantro lime sauce is the perfect dipping sauce, dressing, or marinade and comes together in just 5-minutes! It’s packed with flavor from fresh cilantro, lime juice, garlic, and has a creamy smooth texture thanks to greek yogurt.
Ingredients
- 1 cup cilantro, rinsed and towel dried
- 1–2 limes, about 1/3 cup juiced
- 1 clove garlic, peeled
- 2 tbsp avocado or olive oil
- 1/2 cup greek yogurt or sour cream
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- Optional: 1 jalapeño, with seeds removed
Instructions
- Combine ingredients. In a large bowl or blender, combine all ingredients.
- Blend. Blend using a standing or immersion blender until a consistent sauce is formed. Enjoy as a dipping sauce, dressing, or marinade!
Easy and quick healthy and delicious way to dress up a dish or make a dip!
Thanks for your comment Patricia! I’m so glad you enjoyed this sauce, it’s a favorite in our kitchen.
Do you think I could use this with deviled eggs?
Hi Nancy, I’ve never tried this combination before… I think it would depend on the flavor of the filling in your deviled eggs. I think I would enjoy it, but I recommend giving it a try and seeing for yourself!