Homemade Buttermilk Ranch Dressing
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This buttermilk ranch dressing is cool, creamy, and garlicky. Serve it over a green salad or use it as a dip for crudités or chips.
Gourmet is probably not the word that comes to mind when you think of buttermilk ranch dressing, but homemade is nothing like the mass-produced bottled stuff on the grocery store shelves. This buttermilk variation of my standard ranch dressing recipe is one of my go-to salad dressings. It’s cool, creamy, tangy, garlicky, and, honestly, good enough to eat straight with a spoon. Try the dressing over a crisp green salad or as a dip for crudités, potato chips, or baked chicken wings.
“Delicious. This takes just a few minutes to make with outstanding results. A+”
What You’ll Need To Make Buttermilk Ranch Dressing
- Sour Cream: Provides creaminess and tanginess to the dressing.
- Buttermilk: Adds a subtle tang and helps thin out the dressing to a pourable consistency.
- Mayonnaise: Contributes richness and helps bind the ingredients together.
- Garlic: Infuses the dressing with a bold, savory flavor.
- Salt and Pepper: Enhance the overall taste of the dressing.
- Dill: Adds a hint of herbal flavor and freshness.
- Fresh Chives: Offer a mild onion flavor and a pop of color.
- Fresh Lemon Juice: Provides brightness and balances the richness of the other ingredients.
- Tabasco Sauce: Adds an optional touch of heat and extra flavor for those who enjoy a bit of spice.
- Jump to the printable recipe for precise measurements
To make it, simply combine all of the ingredients in a bowl.
And whisk to blend.
That’s all there is to it. Enjoy!
Frequently Asked Questions
Definitely! It will keep well in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 days. Keep in mind that the garlic flavor gets stronger the longer it sits, so you may want to cut back if you’re planning on making it in advance. Also, the dressing will thicken up to more of a dip consistency as it chills. If you’d like it to be pourable, let it sit on the kitchen counter for 30 minutes before using.
Sure, you can omit the mayo and increase the sour cream to 3/4 cup. Because the additional sour cream will add more tangy flavor, reduce the lemon juice to 1 teaspoon.
While I’m a big fan of making your own buttermilk for baked goods, when something relies more heavily on the buttermilk flavor and consistency, I suggest using store-bought.
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Homemade Buttermilk Ranch Dressing
This buttermilk ranch dressing is cool, creamy, and garlicky. Serve it over a green salad or use it as a dip for crudités or chips.
Ingredients
- ½ cup sour cream
- ½ cup buttermilk
- ¼ cup mayonnaise, best quality such as Hellmann's or Duke's
- 2 garlic cloves, minced (see note)
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
- 1½ teaspoons dried dill
- ¼ cup finely chopped fresh chives
- 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
- Few dashes Tabasco sauce, optional
Instructions
- Combine all of the ingredients in a medium bowl and whisk well. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. Chill until ready to serve.
- Note: The dressing will keep well in the refrigerator for 3-4 days. The garlic flavor gets stronger the longer it sits, so you might want to cut back if you're planning on making it in advance. The dressing will thicken up to more of a dip consistency as it chills.
Nutrition Information
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- Serving size: 2 tablespoons
- Calories: 69
- Fat: 7g
- Saturated fat: 1g
- Carbohydrates: 1g
- Sugar: 1g
- Fiber: 0g
- Protein: 1g
- Sodium: 113mg
- Cholesterol: 9mg
This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
Gluten-Free Adaptable Note
To the best of my knowledge, all of the ingredients used in this recipe are gluten-free or widely available in gluten-free versions. There is hidden gluten in many foods; if you're following a gluten-free diet or cooking for someone with gluten allergies, always read the labels of your ingredients to verify that they are gluten-free.
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So good, and simple and light! I’ll have to go raid the neighbours chives again. I’d also like to make it with fresh dill. I was going to make your Caesar dressing tonight but decided on this. Also a lot less calories than Caesar dressing!
Absolutely fabulous! I substituted Cabot’s Whole Milk Greek Yogurt for the sour cream because that’s what I had plenty of on hand. It worked great!
We used this for salad and as a dipping sauce for Baked Chicken Wings. We split the dressing 50/50 using half as is and added Gorgonzola crumbles and a splash of Marukan seasoned Japanese vinegar to the other half. Everyone loved it…especially the wings 🙂
Thanks for the terrific recipe.
Jenn, this is really good. My husband loves garlic so I used fresh. For a milder version, I would switch to powder since fresh garlic gets stronger the longer it sits for sure. I did use Kewpie mayo and my lemons are more tart so I cut that back. Thank you for a fab recipe. So similar to how we made ranch at The Chart House years ago.
Delicious. This takes just a few minutes to make with outstanding results. A+
You didn’t tell the measurements of ingredients at least on my notebook
Hi Pat, It sounds like you are just looking at the portion of the page that has the pictures with some instructions above. If you scroll down a bit to under the pictures, you’ll find the full recipe. Alternatively, at the very top of the page, to the right of the recipe name, you’ll see an orange/red button that says Jump to Recipe – if you click on that, it will take you directly to the recipe. Hope that clarifies!
Excellent! I made the recipe exactly as described. Already printed out the recipe for my quick reference recipe binder notebooks. Outstanding and so easy to make! Thank you Jenn!
Lovely but so salty. I’d start with 1/4 tsp and go up gradually to taste
Wonderful wonderful wonderful. I always double the recipe at a minimum and have been known to quadruple it. I eat it with everything and sometimes eat a spoonful by itself. I make my own mayonnaise using Sally Fallon’s recipe in Nourishing Traditions.
This was phenomenal. I doubled the recipe and and added 2 TBSP of lemon juice (1.5x amount) only because it’s pre-portioned and frozen from our Meyer lemon tree. I cut the garlic by 1/2 because last time it was too garlicky for my taste (and I LOVE garlic-but not overpowering in ranch dressing) I also added some dried Italian herbs (only because I couldn’t find my dill at the moment, but later found it and added it). I had guests over and they all wanted the recipe. I really like the freshness and tartness of the extra Meyer lemon juice from our tree, which may have added a tinge of sweetness to the dressing. We used this to dip home grown air fried zucchini strips. It was so delicious we literally ate until we were absolutely stuffed!)
Made as written. Simple and delicious! Thank you.