Make Your Own Ranch Dressing It’s Easy

Make Your Own Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing It’s Easy

A Gazillion Times Better Than Anything Off The Store Shelf

Ranch Dressing –Make It at Home – As Good As the Original From California’s Hidden Valley Ranch Dining Hall

This meal would contain about 183 calories.
If you don't drink the dressing in the jar.

      Inexpensive – Healthier- Tastier 

        Heck it Even Smells Better

I’m a Grandpa, a teller of tales, and a spinner of yarns. I pretend not to notice the looks on my kid’s faces when I start a story, but they love me so they listen.
This is the internet so I'll get right to the point. Below are the ingredients and how to mix up this iconic salad dressing. It will make you happy to eat vegetables.

 This recipe makes about

12 U.S. liquid ounces (355 ml)

Nutrition info at the end if you want to read it.

Ingredients

1 cup mayonnaise (Best Foods is the one used the most)

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/2 teaspoon dried chives

1/2 teaspoon dried parsley

1/2 teaspoon dried dill

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon onion powder

salt and pepper to taste (I use ½ tsp of salt and about 2 grinds of the pepper mill)

Directions

Get a bowl and add the ingredients in the order listed.
Whisk them up, but if you don’t have a whisk handy, use a fork or a spoon
Pour in to a glass jar, if you have one, but any food safe container will do. It tastes best if you let it cool in the fridge for 30 - 60 minutes.

Even though you mixed them up give the jar a shake. In fact, whenever you use it give the jar a shake to mix things up.

Click here for a downloadable PDF of the Recipe

For those who want to know more. 

Nutritional Information: Is figured on 1 US Tablespoon. Strangely Tablespoons vary between countries so you are looking for about 15 ml or 1/2 US liquid ounce. 

This equals about 3 US, Australian or British teaspoons, as a one serve size. 

   

A salad with Ranch Dressing can be part of a full meal

This Ranch Dressing

Recipe per 3 teaspoon serving

83 Calories

7g of Total Fat

5g of Saturated Fat

       

Click here for a more thorough nutritional information chart

printable and downloadable

 A video explaining Tablespoons vs Teaspoons

In our world that is growing smaller       

Some more information that you may not know about Ranch Salad Dressing: You don't need to know this to make delicious creamy ranch dressing.

SeriousEats.com tested 13 different brands of store bought bottled Ranch Dressing to find the best bottled one available, and had this to say: "We—gulp—tasted 13 different brands to find out. It was not an easy process and many a gag was induced, but we came away with a few answers, the most important one being: None of them. There wasn't a single dressing in the bunch that we'd heartily recommend, particularly not when a homemade Ranch Dressing or Buttermilk Ranch Dip is just a few ingredients and a whisk away."

Ranch Dressing was featured on the Simpsons:

Homer was having a dream of being entertained by belly dancers. After a while he says enough, bring me my ranch dressing hose.

 

Ranch Dressing was invented by a plumbing contractor/cook in Alaska and perfected at the Hidden Valley Dude Ranch. The following came from http://www.omaha.com

YORK — A popular condiment on salads, burgers and sandwiches and a dip for vegetables, pizza slices and deep-fried food was developed by a former resident of York County.

Kenneth Henson of Thayer invented Hidden Valley Ranch dressing, which contains buttermilk, salt, garlic, onion, herbs and spices. The Nebraska-born cowboy dreamed of striking it rich so he and his wife Gayle (Penner) did what so many before them had done -- head west.

In 1949, Henson went to Alaska for three years to work as a plumbing contractor -- a job that included cooking for his fellow workers. While cooking in Alaska, he refined a recipe for buttermilk dressing.

This dressing became the house dressing at Hidden Valley Ranch, a dude ranch the Hensons purchased near Santa Barbara, Calif., in 1954. For many years they hosted guests from near and far who came to enjoy the ranch and enjoy the meals by Kenneth (who by then changed his name to Steve), Gayle and their staff. Income from the ranch was not enough to keep the 120-acre spread going, so Henson sold 54 acres and more Ranch Dressing to keep their heads above water.

They started to get so many requests for the dressing -- more than for ranch bookings -- that Gayle and Henson created a dry packaged mix. They sold the mix of salt, monosodium glutamate, dehydrated garlic, parsley and onions, black pepper and calcium stearate to stores and customers who lived a great distance away.

Kelley's Korner in Santa Barbara was the first store to sell the packaged mix. The packages sold out so fast that Lloyd Kelley, store owner, thought his staff was stealing it. Within no time, Hidden Valley Ranch became transformed into a salad dressing center

My History with Ranch Dressing:

I started eating it in the early 80s. We loved salad, but I couldn't stand the taste of bottled dressing. Buying the seasoning packs and mixing our own was a great way to make a good salad dressing having a little control of what we were eating.
Then I noticed that they started changing ingredients to allow it to last longer in the fridge.
It now has a few of the words you can't describe, plus one you can MSG.  I rather make min own. It isn't hard to mix up 7 seasonings.

It is still my favorite salad dressing, and I have been know to bring my own when dining in restaurants and ordering salads with no dressing.

Just slice up a cold tomato and drizzle some dressing over it and you have yourself a real summer time treat.  It is also great as a dip for veges and soothes the heat from hot chicken wings.

I can't think of a person who has tried this and didn't like it.

Have fun and enjoy some of this dressing on some fresh vegetables.

If you have any questions just ask them below.  If you find my blog helpful, consider sharing with your friends or posting on social media.  Thanks: Grandpa