This homemade Creamy Buttermilk Ranch Salad Dressing is made with fresh ingredients and can be used as a dip or a salad dressing. Packed with a ton of flavour and very easy to make, there is no need to buy store-bought Ranch Dressing.

A bowl of Creamy Buttermilk Ranch Salad Dressing with fresh dill on top. There is a cup of buttermilk and more fresh dill behind the bowl.

Made with buttermilk, sour cream, and fresh herbs, this homemade Creamy Buttermilk Ranch Salad Dressing tastes much fresher than bottled dressing. And it’s easy to make because you only need one bowl to mix it all together.

Ingredients for Creamy Buttermilk Ranch Salad Dressing

This recipe has just under a dozen ingredients.

Sour cream. We use full-fat, but lower-fat sour cream will work as well.
Buttermilk. The sauce gets its richness from the addition of this ingredient.
Mayonnaise. Again, we use full-fat mayo, but low-fat will also work.
Garlic paste. Fresh garlic that is minced very finely will also work, but we find it easier to use jarred garlic paste.
Fresh dill. Fresh tastes best, and we enjoy this ranch sauce a lot in the summer when dill is growing in our garden. Dried dill can be substituted if fresh is not available.
Chives. Another herb we grow in the garden and use in this recipe. Fresh chives are best, but dried can also be used.
Lemon juice. Fresh or bottled can be added to this sauce.
Onion Powder.
Salt and pepper.

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Uses For Creamy Buttermilk Ranch Dressing

Apart from using Ranch dressing on a salad, there are other ways to use it.

As a dip for cut vegetables.
On wraps instead of using mayonnaise.
Serve with chicken strips or nuggets for dipping.
Use as a dressing for coleslaw.
In a pasta salad.

Why Make Your Own Ranch Dressing?

Besides tasting fresher than anything that comes from a bottle, making ranch dressing from scratch is simple and gives you control over what goes into your food.

No Hidden Fillers. In homemade dressing, you won’t find stabilizer, xanthan gum, or artificial thickeners.
Zero Preservatives. Because it is made from fresh ingredients, there is no need to for chemical shelf-stabilizers like sorbic acid or disodium-EDTA.
Real Dairy. This recipe uses real buttermilk and sour cream, skipping the heavily processed “modified milk ingredients” found in store bought products.

Tools We Use To Make Creamy Buttermilk Ranch Salad Dressing

When it comes to making this ranch dressing, we use only a few tools:

A clear glass bowl. We like using clear glass because we can check the bottom of the bowl to make sure everything has been mixed together thoroughly.
A whisk is used to mix everything together. Our go-to is a stainless steel balloon whisk.
Measuring cup and measuring spoons.
A glass bottle for storing the ranch dressing in the fridge. ( We have found some nice glass bottles with stoppers at Dollarama.)

Storing Creamy Buttermilk Ranch Salad Dressing

Ranch dressing will last as long as the expiry date of the ingredients. Usually, this ranch dressing will last about two weeks in the fridge.

It is the expiry date of the buttermilk and sour cream that we use to determine how long the sauce will last. But we wouldn’t use it past 2 weeks in the fridge because the flavours aren’t as fresh by that time.

If you like this recipe, you may also like our Peppercorn Ranch Dressing.

Have you made this recipe? We would love to hear how you used this Ranch dressing. Tell us in the comments below.

A bowl of buttermilk ranch sauce with fresh dill on the top. There is a cup of buttermilk and more fresh dill behind the bowl.

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