Why green goddess is the best salad dressing you’ve never heard of

• This is a best of Lean and Lovin’ It column, first published Aug. 12, 2015; updated Sept. 9, 2026. Don Mauer is taking some time off.

What’s your favorite salad dressing?

What? I didn’t hear green goddess.

Try searching for a green goddess salad dressing recipe and you’ll find nearly as many variations as you would for chili or meatloaf. Yet I’ll guess you’ve never had it and, perhaps, not even heard of it.

I have a long history with making my own salad dressings and mayonnaise from scratch. I steer clear of soybean and canola oils due to their GMO origins, which got me started making my own organic olive oil-based mayonnaise. (Food processors make that a snap.)

I also started experimenting with different vinegars in homemade vinaigrettes, splurging on wine-specific vinegars like champagne or cabernet vinegar. If you haven’t made a vinaigrette with sherry vinegar, you’re missing something special.

Two weeks ago I came across two Green Goddess salad dressing recipes. One was more than 50 years old and used mayonnaise as its base. The other came from Food52's website and made great use of half a ripe, fresh avocado. The dressing picture I saw glowed a beautiful shade, amplifying the green of its name.

It seems that Green Goddess dressing first appeared (about the same time as Caesar salad) more than 100 years ago at San Francisco’s Palace Hotel as a tribute by the hotel chef to a play running in the city titled, not surprisingly, “The Green Goddess.”

Avocados, in the newer green goddess salad dressing recipe, are healthy and good for me. Yes, avocados are long on fat, but that fat is monounsaturated, which is believed to be a very healthy fat.

Green goddess and Caesar dressings have two matching ingredients beyond olive oil: fresh garlic and anchovies. This summer I found some locally grown, very fresh garlic that made a flavor difference (it was s-t-r-o-n-g) to everything I tried it in, including my green goddess dressing.

Anchovies — an umami powerhouse — kick this dressing’s flavor profile up a notch (without it being fishy). In fact, I used the oil from the anchovy tin with regular olive oil for this dressing.

Hard to believe this dressing’s been hiding in plain sight for so long. See what you think; will this dressing become a favorite of yours?

• Don Mauer welcomes questions, comments and recipe makeover requests. Write to him at 1leanwizard@gmail.com.

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Mauer’s Green Goddess Dressing

Makes about 2 cups

1 large garlic clove, peeled

½ ripe avocado, skin and pit removed

3 tablespoons white wine vinegar

3 oil-packed anchovies

Pinch of organic stevia

2 teaspoons fresh-squeezed lemon juice

¾ cups good-quality, extra-virgin olive oil (pour the oil from the sardine tin into the measuring cup and add olive oil to ¾-cup mark)

¼ cup reduced-fat sour cream

1½ tablespoons dried parsley (or 3 tablespoons fresh)

1 tablespoon dried tarragon leaves, crumbled

1 tablespoon dried basil leaves, crumbled

1 small shallot, peeled and chopped

¾ teaspoon sea salt

½ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

1. With the motor running on a food processor, drop garlic through the feed tube and process until minced. Remove the processor’s cover and add avocado, vinegar, anchovies, stevia and lemon juice, and process until pureed. Stop to scrape down the processor’s sides once.

2. With the motor running, add the olive oil in a steady stream. Stop the processor, remove cover and add sour cream, parsley, tarragon, basil, shallot, salt and pepper. Process until combined, about 20 seconds. Taste and adjust seasoning. Carefully remove processor blades and pour dressing into a pint jar. Cover and refrigerate.

Nutrition values per tablespoon: 53 calories (96.4% from fat), 5.6 g fat (0.8 g saturated fat), 0.5 g carbohydrates, 0.05 g sugars, 0.2 g fiber, 0.2 g protein, 1 mg cholesterol, 69 mg sodium. LeanWizard Suggests: The fat in this dressing can be dramatically reduced by substituting ½ cup of slightly thickened chicken broth for ½ cup of the olive oil, reducing calories by 955 (30 per serving) and trimming the fat by 108 grams (3.4 grams per serving).

— Don Mauer