Five Minute Ranch Dressing

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Ranch dressing is an iconic, herbaceous creamy dressing and/or dip. To be quite honest, store bought ranch is fine, but it's not amazing. This five minute ranch dressing surpasses its store bought counterpart, and the best part? No blending required! As long as you have a whisk, you're golden! This ranch dressing is the perfect condiment or accompaniment to homemade home fries, fried pickles and everything in between.

Five minute homemade dressing in a bottle, with a wedge salad behind

Why You'll Love This Recipe

It comes together in no time! If you're looking for a quick salad dressing or dip, this is it. It takes no time to whisk together, and it is ready to eat right away.
No unknown ingredients here! By making store-bought favourites at home, there are no unknown, hard-to-pronounce ingredients in your food.
This dressing is packed with flavour! Fresh herbs and citrus make for a flavourful dip or dressing, with tons of freshness!

Recipe Overview

Flavour: This ranch dressing is tangy and fresh, without using buttermilk! The lemon juice, sour cream, and mayonnaise make the perfectly balanced creamy base for this ranch dressing. Garlic powder and onion powder add a mellow flavour, without being overpowering!

Ease: It does not get easier than this dressing! All you need is a mixing bowl, and a whisk. In fact, not even a whisk. A spoon will work just fine!

Time: The title says it all! This is a five minute recipe.

Ingredients and Substitutions

Ingredient for ranch dressing laid out and labelled

Mayonnaise: I always recommend using a good quality mayonnaise when making a heavily mayonnaise-based dish. I would not recommend swapping out the mayonnaise, because it adds the right balance from the tangy sour cream and lemon.

Sour cream: As with the mayonnaise, this is a crucial element of the ranch dressing. You can always use a lighter sour cream if you are looking for a light alternative. Always keep in mind that lower-fat sour cream is thinner in consistency. You may want to adjust the amount of milk you add in that case, to avoid too thin of a dressing.

Whole milk: Milk is the perfect ingredient to thin out the ranch dressing, depending on your desired consistency. You can also use buttermilk if you would like some extra tang.

Lemon juice and Zest: I recommend using fresh lemon for this recipe, primarily because the zest is the perfect addition to this dressing. If you do not have fresh lemon, you can use bottled lemon juice. You will be missing out on the brightness from the zest, though!

Herbs and spices: You will need fresh dill and chives, garlic and onion powder, dried parsley, and salt and pepper. You can substitute all dried herbs for the fresh herbs as well. The fresh herbs add a nice herbaceous flavour.

Instructions

Bowl with the ingredients for ranch dressing

Add and mix: Add all the ingredients to a mixing bowl, and combine well. That's it - really!

Expert Tip

Use less milk and use this recipe as a fantastic, thicker dip for your vegetables. It's a great way to get kids to eat more veggies too!

Recipe FAQs

How long does homemade ranch keep for?

You can keep this ranch dressing in the fridge for up to 5 days. Because it contains lots of fresh ingredients, it is not shelf stable like a lot of store-bought varieties. Keep it cold, in a jar for optimal freshness.

What can I add to ranch dressing?

If you want to dress up this ranch dressing, you can add an avocado and blend up the dressing. Avocado ranch is a delicious rendition!

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This recipe was updated in June, 2021 with new photos, and updated measurements.