Homemade Ranch Dressing
Thursday, January 5, 2012 15 Comments Tweet
I don’t buy bottled salad dressing. Period. It is so easy to make your own. It takes seconds. It tastes infinitely better. It lacks the long list of questionable ingredients. It just tastes so much better. Did I mention it tastes better? It does. Much better.
I do lemon-olive oil vinaigrettes often for the simple salad of mixed baby greens that accompanies any meal where the vegetable component is an afterthought. I make a homemade caesar dressing for sturdy romaine. I love to make fruity raspberry, grapefruit or mango vinaigrettes for when I make a salad as a meal for lunch, or dinner on a hot summer day.
But my favourite by far? This homemade ranch dressing.
It is creamy. It is fresh. It is tangy. It is wildly addictive. It makes carrot sticks sing the hallelujah chorus. Don’t get me started on what it does for grilled cheese sandwiches…
You can use sour cream, yogurt or buttermilk (or a combination!) for the dairy component. I use whichever is in my fridge. The buttermilk will make a thinner dressing, more conducive to salad than to crudites.
Homemade Ranch Dressing
Makes about 1 cup.
- 1/3 cup mayonnaise
- 1/2 cup sour cream, plain yogurt or buttermilk
- 1 large clove garlic (or two small)
- 1 tbsp minced fresh dill (or 1/2 tsp dried)
- 1 tbsp minced fresh parsley (or 1/2 tsp dried)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- freshly cracked pepper, to taste
Whisk all ingredients together and store in a glass jar or other sealed container in the fridge for up to 1 week.
