Cilantro Lime Sour Cream Sauce

This versatile sour cream sauce is great as a topping or dip. This cilantro lime sour cream sauce will liven up your dinner tonight! It is particularly great with Mexican food, but you can paint its bright flavor on any of your favorite meals! My personal favorite is to use it as a topping for a flavorful chorizo burger!

Ingredients Needed

• Sour cream - I use regular sour cream, but if you plan to pair this with a healthy meal then low fat sour cream may be more appropriate.
• Lime - For best flavor use fresh limes.
• Fresh cilantro - If you don't like cilantro, you can leave it out, but it does add a nice fresh herbal flavor.
• Garlic - Garlic powder can be substituted if needed.
• Salt - I feel table salt disperses better than kosher salt in this sauce.

How to Make a Sour Cream Sauce

This condiment is dead simple to make. The sour cream sauce is made of lime juice, sour cream, cilantro, garlic, and salt. The ingredients simply need to be added to a small bowl and mixed together. There is no cooking required!

Lime juice is the best choice, but you can substitute another citrus such as grapefruit or lemon juice for a different flavor profile.

Lime juicing hack: I always microwave my limes for about 9 seconds prior to juicing them. Heating them up first helps you extract more juice out of them. If you don't own a lime juicer (affiliate link) I recommend purchasing one. Lime juicers are a quick, easy, and inexpensive way to extract maximum juice from limes while leaving your hands clean when you are done.

Tip: If you want to make a thinner sour cream sauce just dribble in a little milk or heavy cream until you get the consistency you desire.

Is there a substitute for sour cream?

Plain Greek Yogurt is the best substitute for sour cream. It has a similar tangy flavor and consistency. If you are looking for a healthy substitute for sour cream for this recipe, I would recommend using Greek Yogurt instead.

Mayo is another option some people use. However, I don't like mayonnaise as a sour cream substitute because it lacks the tangy zip of sour cream, and it has three times more calories.

How to Store this Sauce

This is a perfect condiment to make in advance and use it for multiple meals. Keep the sauce in the refrigerator and enjoy it within a week. You can store it even longer without fresh cilantro in it. I simply save the empty sour cream container and store the sauce in there, but you can also use any other airtight container you have in your kitchen.

How to Use Cilantro Lime Sauce

This is the perfect sauce to dress up any Mexican or Caribbean dish. Here are some flavorful ideas to get you started, but really the possibilities are endless:

• Fish Tacos - I love flaky fish on a corn tortilla with fresh slaw.
• Chicken tacos - Chop up a chicken breast, season it, and throw it on some warm flour tortillas with this sauce... oh man that's good!
• Chicken wrap - I love this with chicken, but turkey is also a good choice.
• Jamaican Black Bean Soup - Swirl in a dollop of sauce prior to serving.
• Black bean burger - Black beans is the perfect pairing for these bright flavors.
• Enchiladas - The sour cream sauce is right at home on beef or chicken enchiladas.

This recipe was originally published on FoxValleyFoodie.com June 1, 2015.