This Green Sauce Might Be the Most Versatile Recipe You'll Make All Year
- Andrea Tot
- Jul 9
- 3 min read
Some recipes earn a permanent spot in your kitchen.
This vibrant green sauce recipe from Plant Based Support community member Josie Clemens is exactly of that kind.
Packed with spinach, fresh herbs, caramelized onions, and warming spices, it transforms everyday meals into something deeply flavorful. Spoon it over pasta. Toss it with roasted vegetables. Drizzle it over potatoes. Stir it into grains. Spread it on sandwiches. Once you make a batch, you'll find yourself reaching for it all week long.
The secret isn't a single ingredient, it's layers of flavor.
Slowly caramelized onions create natural sweetness. Fresh herbs bring brightness. Spinach adds color and body. Smoked paprika, turmeric, cinnamon, and black pepper create warmth and depth that make this sauce taste like it simmered for hours.
Even better?
It's incredibly flexible.
Prefer parsley? Go for it. Love cilantro? Perfect. Dill fan? That works too. Want a little heat? Add chili flakes or your favorite spicy pepper. Like your sauces tangier? Finish with extra lemon juice. Craving a hint of sweetness? Blend in a date.
Recipes like this remind us that eating more plants doesn't have to mean eating the same foods every day. A simple homemade sauce can completely reinvent the meals you already love.
Make a batch once, enjoy it for days, and let it become one of those recipes you know by heart.
We hope it finds a permanent place in your kitchen.
Happy cooking!
— Andrea Plant Based Support
Green Sauce Recipe
Recipe by Josie Clemens
Green Sauce Recipe
Yield: 3–4 cups
Ingredients
1 box of fresh spinach
2 julienne onions of choice (red, white or yellow)
1 bunch herb of choice (parsley, cilantro, or dill recommended)
1 cup water or veg stock (you might not use all of it)
1⁄4 cup vinegar of choice or lemon juice
2 TB salt
1 TB turmeric
1 TB smoked paprika
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp cinnamon
Optional spice: 1 tsp-1 TB chili flakes or 1 diced spicy pepper of choice, with or without seeds (seeds add more spice)
Equipment
1 soup pot with lid
Blender or stem blender
Instructions
In a soup pot, add your onions, sliced julienne (thin long slivers).
Bring your pot up to medium heat, and add the salt to the top of your onions and let them sit. The salt will pull the moisture out of the onions, and you will be cooking the onions in their own juices.
When you hear the pit start to sizzle, stir the onions lightly. Pour your veg or water stock. You will need this to deglaze the pan as the onions become more caramelized. If you opted for some spice, add your chopped peppers or chili flakes here.
When the pot sizzle heavily again and the stock has disappeared completely (pan is “au sec” or “nearly dry”) add your vinegar/lemon juice.
Repeat this process, allowing the pan to become dry again, cooking the onions by adding splashes of the water/stock along the way as the onions start to brown in the pan. You can add the water directly to the brown spots on the bottom of the pan and use your spoon or spatula to get that flavor off the pot and back into the onions.
Take your herbs of choice and roughly chop the fluffy tops off into 1⁄2” pieces, and finely chop the bunch of stems at the bottom until you have roughly 1 cup of both leaf and stem.
Once the onions are cooked thoroughly, set the pan to high heat.
Add your spices and stir to coat. Let the spices cook onto the onions for 1 minute.
Add your chopped herbs. Stir just once to coat your onions with them.
Add as much spinach as you can to your pot, aiming for the whole box. Do not stir yet. Place a lid on the pot so the spinach can steam.
After the spinach wilts, remove the lid and stir the spiced onions into the spinach. Keep the pot on the hot burner, but shut off the heat. Transfer the contents to a blender, or use a stem blender to pulverize the fibers and make a luscious sauce.
Add more acid, salt, or blend a date in for some sweetness. Place this over pasta, cooked veggies, potatoes or grains!
