Farmstead Provisions: Homemade Ranch Dressing

Hey friends! I made grain bowls over the weekend and like to make my own dressings for the bowls. I’ve made all kinds of things-homemade lemony vinaigrette, homemade hummus, homemade chimchurri, but I wanted something different. Then I thought about making ranch dressing. I haven’t made it in a couple of years but at one point I made it all the time! I went searching the website for my recipe and realized that it wasn’t on here! YIKES! So. Here you are friends. My Farmstead Provisions: Homemade Ranch Dressing recipe. It’s so easy and so yummy! You’ll be whipping this ranch dressing up over and over again. It doesn’t get more homemade or southern Appalachian than homemade ranch dressing.

The Recipe

Ingredients:
1 cup of milk or buttermilk
1 cup of sour cream
1 cup of mayonnaise (I prefer Duke’s but use your favorite!)
juice of 1 lemon
spices: dill, basil, oregano, salt, pepper. Use fresh or dried and any combination, but don’t skip the salt and pepper!

Instructions:
1. in a clean quart mason jar, combine all ingredients. Stir or shake to mix. Add the lemon juice last. It will curdle the mixture slightly. This is what helps to thicken the ranch.

This recipe is easy to scale up or down since it is a 1:1 ratio of all the dairy ingredients. Just adjust your lemon juice accordingly. The acid in the lemon juice is literally to help curdle the dairy and act as a thickening agent. You’ll know how much juice to use by how thick the dressing gets as you add the liquid to it. Trust your instincts! Or ask me and I will help you!

What I love about this recipe, other than how easy it is to make, is that you can also make your own dairy products to go in here. Once you have some milk, you can make the mayonnaise and the sour cream. You can even make your own buttermilk to go in the recipe! You can also source dairy products at the farm market as well. And the herbs? They can come straight out of your garden. And if you dry your own herbs you can have them year round for when you are just craving some good, homemade ranch dressing! So many ways to make this a very homemade dressing.

What is your favorite salad dressing you’ve made? Tell me all about it in the comments below! Happy making friends!

‘til next time
-k
xoxo