Recipe for Ranch Dressing • Longbourn Farm (2024)

FAQs

How do restaurants make ranch so good? ›

Even when a restaurant does start with premade ranch, they will often fold in extra fresh herbs, and maybe even more buttermilk, to lighten and bring in some brighter flavors that can be lost in shelf-stable bottling.

Because while some restaurants do use a bottled shelf stable dressing, what you are referring to is a powdered ranch mix (typically the Hidden Valley brand) that the restaurant cooks add milk/ buttermilk and sour cream to make their dressing.

When considering why meals taste so much better in restaurants than when prepared at home, the answer is usually lots of butter. However, when it comes to ranch dressing, there's another creamy ingredient that steals the show — buttermilk.

Who Invented Ranch? Around 1950, Steve Henson unknowingly made history when he whipped up a unique mixture of dry herbs and buttermilk. Originally a plumber, Steve came up with the concoction while working briefly in Anchorage as a construction worker and part-time cook for his crew.

The difference is dairy

The key difference between bottled ranch and ranch that's been mixed from a packet — which is what's usually served in restaurants — is that ranch made from a mix usually contains real dairy ingredients. The store-bought varieties don't.

While many restaurants use mass produced ranch mix, they often add it to a higher-quality base. This might include milk, buttermilk, sour cream, or mayonnaise. So when you notice that the ranch in a restaurant tastes better than the bottled dressing from the store, what you're really tasting is delicious, creamy fat.

One of my favorite ranch boosts is adding something spicy. Squirt in some Sriracha or Mexican-style hot sauce, or add a spoonful of Moroccan harissa paste, wing or Buffalo sauce, or some diced chipotle peppers in adobo sauce.

Traditional ranch is made from sour cream, mayonnaise, dried herbs (usually dill, parsley, and chives), garlic powder, and onion powder. Buttermilk versions have, as you guessed, the addition of buttermilk and tend to be a bit thinner.

How Long Does Homemade Ranch Last? Stored in a well-sealed container in the fridge (assuming you began with fresh sour cream and buttermilk) your buttermilk ranch dressing should keep for up to two weeks.

The ranch packet has a fresher taste, because you add your own mayo and milk. Even though all the herbs and spices in the mix are dried, they rehydrate quickly and leave you with a product that feels homemade. This version of Hidden Valley Ranch is more flavorful than the bottled version and much, much thicker.

Why is the ranch at pizza places so good? ›

Pizza gets acid from the tomato sauce, as well as a healthy dose of starchy carbs from the crust. These two tastes meld together beautifully, and ranch puts another layer on top of that. Its creaminess, derived from the buttermilk base, offsets both the acid and starch to coat your mouth in herby goodness.

Homer's tastes are meant to reflect those of the American everyman, and in this case the Simpsons writers nailed it: Ranch dressing has been the nation's best-selling salad topper since 1992, when it overtook Italian.

Is ranch like garlic mayonnaise? Not really, that's aioli. Ranch is more like buttermilk, green onion, garlic, black pepper mayonnaise. There's a lot more going on in ranch than just garlic and mayo.

Ranch dressing is a savory, creamy American salad dressing usually made from buttermilk, salt, garlic, onion, mustard, herbs (commonly chives, parsley and dill), and spices (commonly pepper, paprika and ground mustard seed) mixed into a sauce based on mayonnaise or another oil emulsion.

The Classic and Southern are the same, but the creamy ranch has buttermilk powder and some other ingredients like lactose, malic acid, and carrageenan (the latter to hold it together since buttermilk powder thins out in a weird way)... the flavor is much milder than the classic/southern because of the buttermilk powder ...

Restaurants sometimes charge money for extra sauces and dressings in order to cover their costs. They don't get the stuff for free, its cost isn't built into every menu item and they charge you so they don't lose money.