Panera Green Goddess Salad & Dressing
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Panera’s Green Goddess Dressing is creamy, tangy, and downright addictive—and now you can make it at home! It’s perfect drizzled over a Cobb salad, tossed into pasta salad, or used as a dip for crunchy veggies (or let’s be real—french fries). 🥗🍟💚
🔍 COPYCAT SECRETS UNCOVERED!
Panera lists some recipes on their website – but be careful! Sometimes the recipe isn’t actually THE recipe! You see – they list their ingredients on their site for every menu item. In this case, the Green Goddess dressing recipe they share doesn’t match their ingredients on the menu! And – they don’t taste the same either! I’m a detective when it comes to my copycat recipes!
Panera Green Goddess Salad & Dressing Ingredients
The Green Goddess Dressing at Panera is very famous and people love it! It’s distinct green color combined with the fresh flavor from fresh basil makes it stand out! Top a delicious cobb salad with grilled chicken breast and this copycat recipe for Green Goddess dressing and you’ll have a Panera lunch at home!
Panera’s Green Goddess Dressing Ingredients
- Plain Greek yogurt – you can swap sour cream for this if you like
- Canola Oil
- Fresh basil leaves – you gotta use fresh herbs for this! That’s what gives it that punch of extra flavor!
- Parmesan cheese
- Vinegar: White Wine & Apple Cider – you could use champagne vinegar instead of white wine vinegar
- Honey – easy swap for this is agave or sugar
- Dijon Mustard
- Lemon Juice
- Seasonings: Onion Powder, Garlic Powder, Salt & Pepper
Cobb Salad Ingredients
- Greens: Spring Greens & Romaine Lettuce – I like the spring greens with spinach, arugula and green & red leaf lettuce
- Skinless Chicken Breasts – I didn’t feel like breaking out the grill so I coated chicken breasts with salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and paprika. Then I roasted at 375º in the oven for 18-20 minutes – flipping halfway through.
- Grape tomatoes
- Pickled red onions – I bought pickled onions but you can also make them using this same refrigerator pickle recipe
- Avocado
- Applewood smoked bacon
- Hard boiled eggs – I have tried so many ways to make hard boiled eggs and this is the NO-FAIL way to make them so the shells come off easily!!!
How to Make Panera’s Green Goddess Dressing & Salad Recipe
This is such an easy recipe to make – the dressing all goes in the blender (no chopping necessary) and the salad is easy peasy! Let’s get started.
- Add all dressing ingredients to a blender and liquify. Makes 1.5 cups of dressing. You can keep the leftovers in a sealed glass container.
- Refrigerate overnight if possible – this allows the dressing to thicken a little and the flavors to meld. It’s a bit more tart after being refrigerated overnight.
- Make your salad by layering your greens into the bottom of a bowl.
- Top with the salad components: grilled or roasted chicken breast, chopped cooked bacon, pickled red onions, sliced avocado, grape tomatoes and a hard boiled egg.
- Drizzle with your freshly made Green Goddess dressing!
Tips, Tricks & FAQs
Yeah – pretty healthy! According to their menu, the whole salad with dressing is just 500 calories.
It’s a creamy tart dressing but a nice herbaceous flavor because of the basil. That’s also what gives it the green color.
This recipe makes 1.5 cups of salad dressing – so you’ll definitely have extra. Store dressing in airtight containers and refrigerate up to 2-3 weeks.
Yes – Steak, salmon or shrimp would be delicious on this cobb salad.
No – but you could add blue cheese or feta cheese if you’d like!
More Salad Dressing Recipes
More Panera Salad Recipes
Panera Green Goddess Salad & Dressing
Equipment
Ingredients
Green Goddess Dressing
- 1 cup plain Greek yogurt
- 1/4 cup canola oil
- .5 oz fresh basil leaves
- 2 tbsp parmesan cheese
- 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1.5 tbsp honey
- 1 tsp dijon mustard
- 1/2 tsp lemon juice
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder
- 1/4 tsp onion powder
- 1/8 tsp coarse sea salt
- 1/8 tsp ground black pepper
Cobb Salad
- 8 cups spring greens
- 16 oz grilled chicken sliced
- 8 oz grape tomatoes
- 1/3 cup pickled red onions
- 2 avocado sliced
- 4 slices applewood smoked bacon cooked & chopped
- 4 hard boiled eggs sliced
Instructions
- Add all dressing ingredients to a blender and liquify. Makes 1.5 cups of dressing. You can keep the leftovers in a sealed glass container.1 cup plain Greek yogurt, 1/4 cup canola oil, .5 oz fresh basil leaves, 2 tbsp parmesan cheese, 1 tbsp white wine vinegar, 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar, 1.5 tbsp honey, 1 tsp dijon mustard, 1/2 tsp lemon juice, 1/4 tsp garlic powder, 1/4 tsp onion powder, 1/8 tsp coarse sea salt, 1/8 tsp ground black pepper
- Refrigerate overnight if possible – this allows the dressing to thicken a little and the flavors to meld. It’s a bit more tart after being refrigerated overnight.
- Make your salad by layering your greens into the bottom of a bowl.8 cups spring greens
- Top with the salad components: grilled or roasted chicken breast, chopped cooked bacon, pickled red onions, sliced avocado, grape tomatoes and a hard boiled egg.16 oz grilled chicken, 8 oz grape tomatoes, 1/3 cup pickled red onions, 2 avocado, 4 slices applewood smoked bacon, 4 hard boiled eggs
- Drizzle with your freshly made Green Goddess dressing!
I worked at Panera for 2 years and one of my duties for the food prep was to blend up tons of Green Goddess dressing. Unlike most of their other dressings, which come in big jars (like store salad dressing only bigger!) Green Goddess was made in-house using a mix of whole and pre-made ingredient items. And your list looks pretty close, if you didn’t have access to a few of the premade ingredients that are proprietary to Panera. For example, there is champagne dijon vinegar in it, which you separated out and will give the same flavors. Agave/honey, lemon juice, and onion are not in the original recipe but it’s also difficult to say what’s in that champagne dijon vinegar we used. I wish I remembered exact proportions, but the entire recipe is: plain greek yogurt, regular mayonnaise, basil pesto, fresh basil, and champagne dijon vinegar 🙂