Happy Saturday everyone! I must confess, I had every intention of whipping up an amazing shamrock-shake-esque smoothie to post for today, since we’re so close to St. Patrick’s day. Unfortunately, my day job has been insane these past couple weeks and I’m lucky I had time to get anything ready to post today. So I decided to at least stick with the idea of something green and festive – and share instead a new favorite of mine – cilantro tahini sauce.

On most nights I come home from the office and want as little time to prepare dinner as possible. My dinners often consist of sauteed or roasted veggies, tofu or chickpeas, and quinoa. The way I make them new and exciting each time is by changing up whatever sauce I can whip up. My go-to ingredients for sauce? Something creamy, usually tahini or peanut butter, a spice of some sort – peppers, cilantro, basil, etc. – and a bit of lemon juice. The thing I really like about using tahini as a base for vegetable sauces is that it’s extremely versatile. It has a really mellow flavor that you can simply add a bit of lemon juice to for a bit of tang, or add Sriracha for heat. This time, I had a bunch of cilantro in the fridge I needed to use up and decided to try a new sauce with that.

I added a bit of garlic and salt in with the cilantro and tahini – but I was out of lemons, which is what I would normally go to for a little zest. Instead, I used a small amount of apple cider vinegar and it gave the sauce a whole new depth of flavor that was both a bit tangy and a little sour. It brought out a whole new flavor than I would have gotten with lemon juice alone, so I’ll definitely be adding this to my arsenal of ingredients to whip up on weeknights!

One of the best things about making sauces, or dressings, is that you know exactly what goes into them. There’s no weird artificial flavors or ingredients, and it’s also a much more economical way to spice up your meals. While I used this as a dressing for roasted veggies and topping quinoa bowls, it could also be used as a salad dressing. The other great thing about making your own sauce? It’s so quick and easy – there’s almost no excuse not to! In under 5 minutes you’ve got a whole new way to serve veggies. And isn’t that something everyone could love?