15 Best Cilantro Recipes

At the top of our cilantro recipes...cilantro lime shrimp! It's packed with zingy flavor: and it takes less than 10 minutes to put together! It comes out beautifully tangy and fresh, pairing perfectly with Mexican-style flavors. Serve it with rice, an avocado salad, or in tacos. Or make it into a main dish salad topped with our cilantro dressing.

Add cilantro, lime juice and lime zest to your rice, it catapults it to an entirely different level! The ways to serve it are endless: use it as a side to go with tacos, burrito bowls, enchiladas, grilled shrimp skewers, and more. It’s incredibly versatile, and we find ourselves making it often. Really, any meal is better with a little cilantro lime rice!

Here’s one of the tastiest cilantro recipes we know: creamy cilantro dressing! You’re going to want to bathe in this one (really). It’s creamy, savory, fresh, and tangy all at once. You can drizzle it on salads, tacos or enchiladas. Or a burrito bowl! Or even use it as a dip for fries. It’s multi-purpose and it takes only 5 minutes to blend up!

Cabbage in a creamy dressing is one thing. But add the bite of fresh cilantro and a pop of lime, and it’s next level! The flavor is creamy, savory and ideal as a side dish for chicken, fish or veggie mains. Or, throw it into a tortilla as a taco filling, and eat the rest on the side. Here’s how to make this irresistible recipe (we’re already getting hungry).

This healthy cilantro recipe recipe is 100% green veggies, and people can't get enough of it! Every time we serve this one, someone asks for the recipe. When we tell them it's just green peas, cilantro, and salsa verde, they don't believe it! Here's a great way to eat your green veggies: on top of tortilla chips.

Here’s a tasty cilantro recipe that’s begging to be drizzled on just about anything: cilantro lime crema! This Mexican sauce is perfect for dolloping on tacos and burritos. At the same time, it’s just as delicious as a dip for sweet potato fries and grilled shrimp. It’s full of zesty, herby flavor, and it’s quick and easy to mix up. 

Also try: Cilantro Lime Sauce

The classic cilantro recipe: salsa! This salsa fresca is classic but so savory and good, you won't be able to stop dipping chips! It's the classic tomato salsa using fresh tomatoes, onion, garlic, and jalapenos. It's tangy, it's savory, it's a little garlicky, and it's 100% WOW.

This guacamole is a home run every time! When we serve it, a chorus of “Wow’s” fill the room. (Really. Not hyperbole!) What makes it so great? It’s classic and has the perfect balanced flavor: perfectly savory, creamy, and tangy. Serve this classic cilantro recipe with tortilla chips and your guests — and you — won’t be able to stop eating it.

What makes the green interior on falafel? Cilantro! Once you’ve had a really good falafel sandwich, you crave it. This fried chickpea fritter is stuff dreams are made of, stuffed into a flatbread with cool cucumber sauce. You get the crunch of the fried outside, the soft herby interior, and the sauces that run down your chin and stick to your fingers.

Here's a tasty cilantro recipe that's always a winner: shrimp tacos with cilantro sauce! Combine shrimp tacos with chips, salsa, and frozen margaritas and we can’t think of much better. What we love about this easy shrimp tacos recipe is that it’s both fast dinner recipe for weeknights and entertaining: making it a double whammy. 

Meet our favorite vegan cilantro recipe: this bright green cilantro sauce! It’s 100% plant-based, so it works for all sorts of eaters! For a while now, Alex and I have been using the idea of cashew cream to make creamy, dairy free sauces. It’s just soaked cashews blended with a bit of water, but it becomes so intensely creamy that it makes the perfect sauce for dolloping. 

Another fantastic cilantro recipe? Classic pico de gallo. If you’ve got ripe tomatoes, pico is the perfect place to use them. Use it as a salsa with tortilla chips, use it on top of grilled fish, or of course, throw it into a taco. 

This Mexican salad is full of delicious Latin-style flavors: colorful veggies, cilantro lime salad dressing, and crispy tortilla strips. It all combines into a super-flavorful dish that's absolutely perfect with tacos! Even better, it's quick and easy to make. This cilantro recipe is a big winner in our house.

What we love about this cilantro recipe? Mexican coleslaw is fresh and flavor-filled, a healthy contrast to the richness of tacos. It has no mayo: instead there's tangy vinaigrette to compliment the crunchy cabbage, red onion, cilantro, and cumin. It’s got both cumin seed and ground cumin for a double hit of flavor. Bonus: it doubles as a taco topping.

Last up in our zesty cilantro recipes: salsa verde! Why make salsa verde at home when you can easily buy it at the store? Because it’s that good. It’s super tangy, garlicky, smoky, and a little spicy, perfect for dipping endless mountains of tortilla chips.