I wanted a nice fresh salad to go with homemade cheese enchiladas and came up with this cilantro chipotle dressing. I absolutely love cilantro and pumpkin seed dressing, but I had never made it and I didn’t have any pumpkin seeds around, but pine nuts worked great and the chipotle pepper in adobo sauce gave such a nice smokey note and a little spice to this dressing!

We had the cilantro chipotle dressing tossed with romaine, tomatoes, orange bell peppers and red onions, and sprinkled with cotija cheese. I bet adding more pine nuts and some kind of dried fruit (like apricots) would be delicious too, but we kept it simple.

1 cup loosely packed cilantro
1 tablespoon pine nuts
1/2-1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon sour cream
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
Salt
Fresh ground black pepper

• Blend all ingredients in a food processor until smooth.