homemade buttermilk ranch dressing

My latest dressing, this buttermilk ranch, is probably one of the most popular dressings around. I am surprised it took me this long to make one from scratch.

As always, I like to compare my dressing to a store-bought version. Here is the ingredients list of ranch you would buy in the store.

Ingredients:
Vegetable oil (soybean and/or canola), water, egg yolk, sugar, salt, cultured nonfat buttermilk, natural flavors (milk, soy), less that 1% of: spices, dried garlic, dried onion, vinegar, phosphoric acid, xanthan gum, modified food starch, Monosodium glutamate, artificial flavors, disodium phosphate, sorbic acid, calcium disodium EDTA, disodium inosinate and disodium guanylate.

And now my version:

Ingredients

1 cup buttermilk*

1/2 cup plain yogurt

1 tsp lemon juice

1 clove garlic - minced

2 Tbsp finely minced parsley

1.5 tsp salt

1/4 tsp mustard powder

1/4 tsp paprika - if you really want to kick it up a notch use this paprika

pinch of black pepper

~1/4 cup heavy cream

Directions: Combine all ingredients in a bowl and whisk. I added the heavy cream at the end to make it a bit thicker and less tangy. Mine started off a bit runny, but after setting in the fridge overnight, it thickened up a lot. 

* A note on buttermilk. There are not a lot of recipes that call for buttermilk. So there always seems to be extra. Just put it in a silicon ice cube tray, freeze it, the put the cubes in a plastic bag. Thanks Pinterest!

I have done a series of homemade Dressings & Sauces, where you can find all of them listed with links.