Once you make this easy homemade ranch dressing, you may never buy store-bought again! It’s restaurant quality, right in your kitchen.

THE INGREDIENTS: 

Mayo: A staple in many fridges, mayo provides a thick and creamy texture to our dressing. Without it, our dressing would be far too liquidy. If your dressing is thinner than you’d like, then this is the ingredient to add more of! Be sure to add a little extra buttermilk powder and spices if you do so. You want to ensure your seasoning doesn’t get diluted! If you don’t have mayo on hand, sour cream works perfectly as a 1:1 substitute. Use up whichever one you’re trying to evict from your fridge! 

Milk: We’re going for a dip or a dressing, not a spread! Milk helps to thin our dressing down to a desired consistency. Use what you have on hand, we personally use 2% or whole milk. A little milk goes a long way, so be incredibly cautious to add more than this! If your dressing really is too thick, only add a couple more teaspoons of milk at a time to thin it out. You can also use cream, half-and-half, or even buttermilk as a substitute for milk in this recipe. 

Buttermilk Powder: This special ingredient gives ranch that tang we all know and love. We would not adjust the amount of this in our recipe, as we feel we have got it just right. Buttermilk powder allows us to add more buttermilk flavor than fresh buttermilk, as replacing the milk with buttermilk alone would not impart enough flavor to this dressing. 

Salt: No surprises here! Salt gives us that savory flavor we crave and helps the rest of our flavors stand tall in this dressing. You know how much salt you like best, so adjust as desired. 

Onion Powder: Ranch dressing is an American staple, and it is no surprise this recipe includes a spice most likely in most American spice cabinets! It may seem like a lot of onion powder, but we ask you to trust us! If you don’t have onion powder on hand, dried or fresh chives are what we recommend you reach for. 

Garlic Powder: Who doesn’t like garlic? We’re not sure, we haven’t gotten around to our worldwide garlic surveying yet. In the meantime, this garlic powder adds a nice punch that could make our ranch dressing qualify as addictive. Adjust as desired. A good substitute would be 1-2 cloves of freshly grated garlic if that is what you have on hand. 

Freshly Cracked Black Pepper: If you’ve read our other blog posts, like our Cauliflower Alfredo Pizza post, you’ll see oftentimes we feel black pepper needs to shine through more. This recipe is no exception, and freshly cracked black pepper just tastes leagues better than pre-ground. You know how much black pepper you like best, but we recommend trying out ½ a teaspoon if you really are looking for a measurement. 

Dried Dill: You know those green specs you often see in ranch dressing? Yeah, at least some of them are dill! We don’t like to be skimpy with the dill in this recipe and recommend you aren’t, either. Feel free to replace this with about 2 ¼ teaspoons of freshly minced dill.

Dried Parsley: We have included dried parsley as an optional ingredient in our recipe for those that like it, but wanted to explain why we see it as optional. In fact, here is where we deviate from our own recipe! Many ranch dressings include dried parsley. However, we’d argue it’s more for looks instead of flavor. Since dried parsley is relatively flavorless, we try to avoid having it in our spice cabinet. For presentation or to use up some you already have, feel free to add this. If you want more fresh flavor in your ranch, you could even mince about 2 ¼ teaspoons of fresh parsley and add it, but know that adds a little extra flavor you may or may not want in your ranch. 

KEY INFORMATION: 

My Ranch is Too Thin/Too Thick, What do I Do? If your ranch is too thin, we recommend adding another 1 tablespoon of mayo at a time until it gets to your desired consistency. To make up for the added dairy, we recommend adding extra spices/buttermilk powder to ensure the ranch flavor does not get diluted. If your ranch is too thick, we recommend adding about 2 teaspoons of milk at a time until it gets to your desired consistency-it changes fast! If you have to add a lot of milk, then also be sure to add some extra spices and buttermilk powder. 

What Goes with Homemade Ranch Dressing? We like to use it as a salad dressing or a french fry dipping sauce! However, if you’re a ranch on pizza kind of person, we recommend putting it on this Goat Cheese and Veggie Pizza! A nice ranch salad would also go with our Mushroom, Swiss, and Onion or Tomato, Zucchini, and Basil Quiches! If our Hashbrown Casserole or Potato Casserole is too decadent for you, a ranch salad would be sure to lighten it up.