Creamy Cilantro Lime Dressing is one of our favorite Mexican Food sides.

This Creamy Cilantro Lime Ranch Dressing is a must with our favorite copycat recipe for Cafe Rio’s Sweet Pork salad, or the shredded chicken salad.

Sometimes making salad dressing at home can feel like extra work, but this dressing is worth it, and could not be more easy. You’ll be making it all the time once you try it.
Not only is this dressing so good on a chicken or sweet pork salad, you’ll want to dip everything in it! From tacos, burritos, nachos or enchiladas it’s the best condiment.

Cilantro Lime Dressing Cafe Rio Copycat recipe:

Ingredients:

1 packet Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing dry mix
1 cup mayo
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 bunch cilantro chopped
1 small jalapeño pepper, seeds removed
1 tsp. lime juice 1/2 lime juiced
1-2 to tomatillos papery skins removed and cut in half
1 garlic clove or 1/2 teaspoon pre-minced garlic from a jar

How to make Cilantro Lime Ranch Dressing Cafe Rio:

Blend all ingredients together in a blender.
Chill in the fridge. Will keep up to two weeks.

Make it ahead:

This dressing gets better with time. We prefer to make it a day or two before serving a crowd so that the flavors have time to develop and blend together.

How long does the Cafe Rio Ranch Dressing keep?

This dressing will keep up to two weeks in the fridge. So you can enjoy it on all your favorite Mexican dishes

Can you freeze this dressing:

I wouldn’t recommend freezing this salad dressing. It changes after freezing, and it really is not as good after it thaws out.

Here’s a bit of the step by step in photos. The full recipe below. Here’s all the ingredients lined up ready to go. We love our Blendtec Blender for recipes like this, it blends everything so smooth.

Cilantro Lime Ranch Dressing

We love this on dressing on EVERYTHING, but it's a must on a Cafe Rio pork or chicken salad.

Author Kami | NoBiggie.net

Ingredients

1 packet Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing dry mix
1 cup mayo
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 bunch cilantro chopped
1 small jalapeno pepper seeds removed
1 tsp. lime juice 1/2 lime juiced
1-2 to tomatillos papery skins removed and cut in half
1 garlic clove or 1/2 teaspoon pre-minced garlic from a jar

Instructions

Blend all ingredients together in a blender.
Chill in the fridge. Will keep up to two weeks.

Making This Recipe? Tag us on Instagram: @NoBiggie using the hashtag #NoBiggieRecipes, so we can see what you are making in the kitchen!

We love to keep this dressing on hand all the time. It’s so good on the Cafe Rio Salad or Tostada.

We love to dip cafe rio cheese quesadillas into the cilantro lime ranch too.

Cafe Rio Dressing Variations:

More heat: keep the seeds and ribs with the jalapeño when blending.
Less heat: remove the seeds and inside ribs of the jalapeño.
Swap out the mayo: sour cream or plain greek yogurt for the mayo to make it a little healthier.
No Tomatillos: you can swap out the fresh tomatillos for canned tomatillos to make the recipe easier.
Salsa Verde: skip the tomatillos altogether and just use 1/2 cup -3/4 cup of your favorite green salsa.