Take the oil out of a dip and something else has to give it body. On this page it is almost always nuts or seeds: 20 of these 22 recipes are built on cashews, sunflower seeds, walnuts, almonds, peanuts, sesame or flax, blended with water until they turn creamy. The two exceptions are the avocado ones, where the avocado is the fat.
So that is how the page is sorted, because what gives a dip its body also decides how it behaves. Nut and seed sauces pour. Bean dips hold a scoop. Roasted vegetable dips are looser and go on the bread rather than around it.
Fourteen of the 22 take 10 minutes or less. The slow ones are slow because a vegetable has to roast, not because there is work to do.
Nut and Seed Sauces
These are the pourable ones, and the method is the same every time: grind or soak the nuts, blend with water, stop at the thickness you want. Less water gives you a dip, more gives you a dressing. What changes between the nine below is the seasoning, not the technique.
1. Quick Universal Cashew Sauce
Equal parts cashews and water, blended with garlic, lemon and nutritional yeast. Five minutes, makes a cup.
This is the one to learn first. At one to one it is thick enough to spoon over a bowl. Add water a tablespoon at a time and the same mixture becomes a dressing.
2. Easy Sunflower Seeds Sauce
Half a cup of sunflower seeds to a full cup of water, so this one pours rather than sits.
Sunflower seeds cost a fraction of what cashews do and behave almost the same once blended. Soy sauce and dried dill do all the seasoning.
3. Creamy Nut-Free Garlic Sauce
Sunflower seed butter instead of nuts, with two pitted dates blended in. Five minutes, 8 servings.
The dates are not there to make it sweet. They are there to take the edge off a whole clove of raw garlic, which is the reason this tastes rounder than it reads.
4. Oil-Free Vegan Salad Dressing
A quarter cup of almonds with Dijon mustard, soy sauce, lemon, nutritional yeast and a tablespoon of flax. Makes 1 cup in 5 minutes.
The ground flax thickens it slightly, which is what keeps it clinging to the leaves instead of running to the bottom of the bowl.
5. Walnut Falafel Sauce
Two ounces of walnuts and 2 ounces of cashews together, with a cup and a half of water, garlic and a whole lemon.
Walnuts on their own can turn bitter once blended. The cashews soften that, which is why the recipe uses both instead of doubling the walnuts.
6. Easy Oil-Free Creamy Peanut Sauce
Whole raw peanuts ground at home rather than peanut butter from a jar. Six ingredients, 5 minutes, makes a cup.
The ground peanuts go into a dry pan for three or four minutes before the liquid does. That short toast is the whole difference, and skipping it leaves the sauce tasting raw.
7. Healthy Sunflower Seeds Dip
Two ounces of sunflower seeds to three quarters of a cup of water. Thicker than the sauce at number 2, and meant for bread.
Seven ingredients, and the fresh dill is marked optional. Leave it out and what you have is a plain seed base you can take in any direction.
8. Plant-Based Party Dip
Cashews and sunflower seeds together, with mustard powder and 2 tablespoons of nutritional yeast. 10 minutes.
That is more nutritional yeast than anything else on this page uses, and it is what pushes the taste toward cheese rather than nut.
9. Almond and Nutmeg Sauce
Two ounces of almonds to a cup and a half of water, thickened with a tablespoon of whole wheat flour. 10 minutes.
The only cooked sauce in this section. Nutmeg and garlic put it closer to a white sauce than a dip, so it goes over vegetables rather than under bread.
Bean and Chickpea Dips
Beans bring their own body, so these need less liquid than the nut sauces and hold a scoop instead of running off one. They are also the cheapest things on the page: three of the four start from a single can.
10. Easy Hummus
Two and a half cups of chickpeas with 2 tablespoons of tahini, lemon, garlic, soy sauce and a third of a cup of water. Seven ingredients, 10 minutes.
Most hummus finishes with a pour of olive oil. Here the tahini carries the fat and the water does the texture, so it comes out lighter than the kind you buy.
11. Vegan Bean Dip
A 15-ounce can of white kidney beans with 6 tablespoons of ground flaxseed, cumin, coriander and onion powder. 10 minutes, 2 cups.
Six tablespoons is a lot of flax, and it is doing the thickening rather than the flavor. It firms up further in the fridge, so leave it looser than you want it.
12. Ten-Minute Bean Dip
Butter beans with tahini and two dates, seasoned with paprika, cumin, onion powder and garlic powder. Serves 3, in 10 minutes.
One can feeds three people, so it is the cheapest thing on this page per serving. Butter beans are softer than chickpeas and blend smoother, which is most of why it is so quick.
13. Chickpea Sandwich Dip
Two cups of chickpeas with a whole roasted eggplant, cumin, paprika, turmeric, ginger and fresh mint. 40 minutes.
The eggplant is the entire 40 minutes. Roast one the night before, alongside whatever else is in the oven, and this drops to ten.
Roasted and Shredded Vegetable Dips
Here the vegetable is the bulk and the nuts are only there for richness. Roasting is what concentrates the flavor, which is why these take the longest, and nearly all of that time is the oven rather than you.
14. Creamy Light Zucchini Dip
One peeled zucchini blended with a full cup of cashews, garlic, lemon and onion powder. 15 minutes, 2 cups.
Peeling is worth the two minutes. The skin is what would turn a pale dip green and give it a grassier edge.
15. Zucchini and Walnut Dip
Two shredded zucchini and 2 ounces of walnuts, with dill, garlic, lemon and red onion. 20 minutes.
Shredded rather than blended, so it keeps some texture. A tablespoon of ground flaxseed goes in to take up the water that shredded zucchini gives off.
16. Zucchini Walnut Dip Sandwich
The dip above, on a thick slice of whole wheat bread with tomato, red onion and parsley.
It is on this page because it answers the question the dip raises, which is what to actually do with two cups of the stuff once you have made it.
17. Pumpkin Seeds and Eggplant Dip
A roasted eggplant and three green peppers with pumpkin seeds and about 3 ounces of cooked chickpeas. 45 minutes, 2 cups.
The pumpkin seeds are the only richness in it, and they are also why this comes out darker and greener than the cashew dips.
18. Fresh Veggie Dip
Three large red peppers, an eggplant, a carrot and half a can of tomatoes, with 2 tablespoons of ground sesame. 45 minutes.
If you are cooking around a nut allergy this is a good place to start, and it is far from the only option: 11 of the 22 recipes on this page contain no nuts at all. Both bean dips, the hummus, the guacamole and both sunflower seed sauces are on that list too.
19. Fresh Cashew and Veggie Spread
An eggplant, five green peppers and a tomato roasted down, then blended with 2 ounces of cashews, paprika and parsley. 50 minutes.
Fifty minutes for a single cup, which is the least efficient thing on this page. Roasting five peppers down to that is exactly what concentrates it, so there is no shortcut that keeps the flavor.
20. Roasted Vegetables Dip
An eggplant, five peppers and half a bulb of garlic roasted together, then blended with cashews, sesame and flax. 55 minutes.
Roasting half a bulb of garlic instead of using it raw is what makes this mellow rather than sharp. Bake the vegetables earlier in the day and the dip itself takes ten minutes.
Avocado, No Blender
The two that need nothing but a bowl and a fork, and the only two on the page where the fat is not a nut or a seed.
21. Easy Homemade Guacamole
One avocado with a tomato, red onion, garlic, lemon and a third of a bunch of fresh dill. 10 minutes, serves 5.
Fresh dill rather than cilantro is the reason this does not taste like other guacamole. Ground coriander goes in as well, so the flavor is there without the leaf.
22. Avocado Chickpea Sandwich Spread
One avocado mashed with a cup of cooked chickpeas, garlic, onion, basil and turmeric. 10 minutes, 4 servings.
The chickpeas stretch a single avocado across four servings and give it enough body to sit in a sandwich without soaking into the bread.
Where to Start
Make the cashew sauce first. Five minutes, a blender, and nothing you cannot buy in a supermarket. It is also the template for eight of the others in that first section.
After that, the ratio is the only dial. The cashew sauce is equal parts nuts and water and comes out thick enough to spoon. The sunflower sauce is one part seeds to two parts water and pours. Once you have made either one, you can aim any of the rest thicker or thinner without looking at a recipe.
And if a nut sauce comes out tasting heavy or flat, it is almost always missing acid. Nineteen of these 22 recipes have lemon in them, and that is why.
For the rest of what replaces oil once you stop pouring it, our guide to cooking without oil covers sauteing, roasting and baking.
