← All recipes

Sauce and Dressing recipes

10 AIP Sauce and Dressing Recipes

A sauce is usually the whole difference between food you tolerate and food you look forward to, and it's also where I see people quietly fall off this protocol.

The bottle in the fridge door is where the trouble hides. These 10 give the flavor back in about the time it takes to read a label.

AIP Recipe · Sauces, condiments & dressings

Lemon garlic pan sauce: the cassava-thickened finish for any seared protein

A quick pan sauce built from roasted garlic, bone broth, cassava flour, lemon, and parsley. It takes less than

AIP Recipe · Sauces, condiments & dressings

AIP Ranch Dressing and Dip

Ranch is one of those foods nobody thinks about until it's gone, and then a salad without something creamy to

AIP Recipe · Sauces, condiments & dressings

Holy grail gravy: the flour-free vegetable-thickened sauce from a slow-cooked roast

The vegetables that braise under a pot roast - onion, carrot, celery, garlic, rosemary, bay - become the gravy

AIP Recipe · Sauces, condiments & dressings

Cranberry Sauce

A bright, real cranberry sauce, fully at home on your holiday plate. Cranberries simmered with orange juice, h

AIP Recipe · Sauces, condiments & dressings

A warm spread that makes the plain plate worth eating

A good spread turns plain chicken or a pile of crisp vegetables into something you actually look forward to, b

AIP Recipe · Sauces, condiments & dressings

Tomato-free AIP ketchup: beets, carrots, and applesauce doing tomato's job

Nightshade-free elimination does not just take tomato away as a topping; it also takes away a cooking ingredie

AIP Recipe · Sauces, condiments & dressings

Nomato Carrot and Beet Ketchup

A carrot and beet ketchup built without tomatoes, rich in carotenoids for skin, eyes, and gut lining, with jus

AIP Recipe · Sauces, condiments & dressings

Coleslaw Dressing (AIP)

Homemade dressing is the kind of thing that feels optional until the bottle in the fridge door runs out and yo

AIP Recipe · Sauces, condiments & dressings

Creamy turmeric dressing: the anti-inflammatory pour-over for salads and roasted vegetables

Coconut cream and olive oil emulsified with lemon, turmeric, ginger, and parsley. Creamy, bright orange, and r

AIP Recipe · Sauces, condiments & dressings

Cilantro Chimichurri: a no-cook sauce that makes plain protein interesting

A jar of something bright in the fridge changes what a plain piece of protein can become. This chimichurri tak

See all 69 Sauce and Dressing recipes

What's actually in the bottle

Seed oils, mustard, black pepper, nightshade-derived spices, soy, and unspecified flavorings turn up across most commercial sauces, and rarely all on the front of the label. Mustard in particular hides inside anything described simply as a vinaigrette.

This isn't about vigilance as a personality trait. It's that the food system labels for shoppers who aren't managing an Autoimmune condition, and you are. That is a system problem rather than a you problem, and making 2 or 3 of your own sidesteps it entirely.

The 4 worth knowing by heart

A lemon and olive oil dressing. A creamy avocado or coconut sauce. An herb sauce in the chimichurri family. And a nomato sauce built on beets, carrots, and onion, simmered down and blended smooth, for anything you used to serve with tomato.

Learn those 4 and nearly every meal in this library has a finish. None of them is complicated, only the nomato needs real simmering time, and none needs a recipe once you've made it twice. If a homemade sauce tastes flat, it's nearly always missing salt or acid rather than anything you've removed.

Questions we get asked

Sauce and Dressing recipes, answered

What condiments are allowed on the Autoimmune Protocol?

Coconut aminos in place of soy sauce, olive and avocado oil, compliant vinegars, fresh herbs, garlic, ginger, horseradish, and citrus. What comes out is mustard, black pepper, most commercial mayonnaise and ketchup, and any sauce built on nightshade spices.

Is there an AIP substitute for soy sauce?

Coconut aminos. It's a little sweeter and less salty than soy sauce, so most people add a pinch of salt alongside it. It works in nearly every application where you'd have reached for soy or tamari.

How do I replace tomato sauce?

A nomato sauce, built on beets, carrots, and onion simmered down and blended smooth. It isn't pretending to be tomato and it's genuinely good in its own right, particularly with meatballs or over roasted vegetables.

How long do homemade sauces keep?

Oil and citrus dressings hold about a week refrigerated. Anything with fresh avocado or soft herbs is best within 2 days. Cooked sauces keep about 5 days and freeze well in small portions.

What can I use instead of black pepper?

Ginger, garlic, horseradish, and fresh herbs give you the brightness pepper was providing. Black pepper is doing more work in your old recipes than most people realize, which is why dishes can taste flat before you've replaced it.