Good morning, friends!
This past Friday, we were discussing salads. Christine H. wrote me to explain how she makes her favorite dressing. I wanted to share a portion of her email, today (with her approval, of course).
Christine described her quick and easy method of making ranch dressing from scratch, using basic ingredients.
"My favorite dressing is creamy ranch. This is a basic base of mayo thinned to appropriate consistency using heavy cream (whole milk causes the mayo to be too thin to coat the veg). Add in the salad dressing mirepoix: onion powder, garlic powder, and dill[weed]. Turn it into peppercorn ranch with the addition of black pepper. Turn it into parmesan ranch with the addition of parmesan. Add in a few flakes of red pepper for some kick.
Add all ingredients into the bowl you plan to eat the salad in and do a quick stir - no extra dishes dirtied. I don’t measure when I cook, so shake seasonings to an amount that experience tells me I like. The whole process takes fewer than 30 second, so probably is faster than walking to the fridge to get out a commercial brand of bottled dressing, shaking it up, pour, then back to replace it in the fridge."
She adds, "You can make ranch dip if you use just enough cream to thin to dipping consistency. I like raw vegetables just fine, but prefer them sparked up by the flavor of ranch."
Two aspects of Christine's description stood out to me:
1) she uses basic ingredients that many of us may have on hand, making several variations of ranch dressing.
2) her method doesn't dirty any extra bowls, or really spoons either. Her dressing could be mixed with the fork she intends to use to eat with. I can appreciate the simplicity of her cooking-style.
This might be a great use for the leftover whipping cream from the recent holidays. I seem to always have a few tablespoons at the bottom of the carton that I need to use up. I love that someone else has figured out for me that heavy cream will work, whereas milk thins the dressing too much.
Christine follows a method that I use when making family-size salads. I make the dressing in the bottom of the serving bowl before adding any other ingredients. I'd not thought to do this for my personal lunch salads. I'm going to remember this the next time I want a creamy dressing.
Thank you, Christine!
Do you have a favorite salad dressing that you make from scratch?
