Christoph and Steffi's Food and Travel & Christoph and Steffi's Food and Travel
A bowl of thick pale green-flecked ranch dip with a carrot stick pulled out of it, surrounded by raw vegetables
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Sauce American VegetarianGluten-freeNut-free no-cookquickmake-aheadfresh

Ranch dip

The real thing, which is buttermilk, sour cream and a lot of fresh herbs, and tastes nothing like the bottle. Made properly it is a herb dip that happens to be called ranch, and the dried-powder version is a different food.

Prep15 min
0
Rest120 min
Servings10
Cook mode

The Hidden Valley original as a buttermilk herb dip, not the powder

Ingredients

Units
Temperature
Servings
10

Ranch

  • 250 g sour cream
  • 120 g mayonnaise
  • 80 ml buttermilk, the ingredient that makes it ranch rather than herb dip
  • 12 g chives, finely snipped
  • 12 g flat parsley
  • 8 g fresh dill
  • 6 g onion granules
  • 6 g garlic granules, granules rather than fresh, because this sits for days
  • 5 g coarse black pepper
  • 5 g fine salt
  • 10 ml white wine vinegar

Dietary labels are a guide, not a guarantee. If you have an allergy, read the ingredients yourself.

Method

  1. Chop the herbs finely and by hand. A processor bruises them and turns the dip grey-green.
  2. Whisk everything together and taste for salt at the end.
  3. Rest at least two hours, and overnight is better. Fresh from the bowl it tastes like seasoned sour cream, because the dried alliums have not rehydrated and the herbs have not bled.

Notes

  • Buttermilk is the defining ingredient. Ranch was invented at a California dude ranch in the 1950s and the buttermilk is what made it distinctive. Without it you have a herb dip.
  • Granules, not fresh garlic. Fresh garlic in a dairy dip turns harsh and slightly bitter within a day. Granules stay even.
  • Dip or dressing is only a question of buttermilk. As written it is a dip. Another 80 ml and it pours.
  • It keeps 5 days. The herbs dull after three, so if you are making it well ahead, hold half the herbs back and stir them in on the day.

Ingredient substitutions

  • Buttermilk is Buttermilch in Germany and widely available. In a pinch, 80 ml of milk with a teaspoon of lemon juice left to stand 10 minutes is a reasonable stand-in, though thinner.
  • Sour cream can be Schmand or crème fraîche, both of which are richer and less sharp; add a little more vinegar to compensate.
  • For a lighter, higher-protein version, swap the sour cream for Greek yogurt. It is sharper and thinner and closer to the yogurt dressing formula.

Sources consulted

Good with

Sources consulted

From Christoph Mayer

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