Homemade Ranch Dressing

Being from the Midwest United States, Ranch is king. People here put it on everything, but bottled ranch can be boring and artificial. Making your own is cheap, quick, and you’ll get more freshness and flavor than you’ll ever get from a bottle. Sure, this could be served with a salad – or we could quit lying to ourselves and have a batch ready to enjoy with our next meal of chicken tenders and fries. Creamy, rich, a little acidic – yum! Add some chipotle, chili powder or jalapeno to this ranch dressing recipe to kick it up a notch if you like.

Notes for Ranch Dressing

• We will toast our garlic to add a little sweet nuttiness and to get rid of any acrid flavor you’d get from raw garlic. If you use raw, mince it super fine or grate and you’ll only need 1 clove! Big chunks of raw garlic are never a good idea.
• This makes a great sauce for fried chicken, fries, and most other fried or otherwise handheld snacks. It can also go on roasted veggies and baked potatoes!
• Admittedly, we’re using a lot of ingredients for a simple ranch dressing recipe. Feel free to play around with your herbs, and you can use all yogurt or all sour cream in place of the other if you only have one on hand. Like most dressings, balance between ratios of ingredients is important, and this often comes down to individual tastes. So use the measurements as a guide, but by no means do you have to stick to these amounts!
• A little lemon or chipotle or another flavor you enjoy could give the dressing a fresh new flavor profile.