Homemade Ranch Dressing (Better Than Store-Bought)

This easy homemade ranch dressing is better than anything you can buy at the store. It’s extra creamy and perfect for tossing with salad or used as a dipping sauce.

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Related: We also love this creamy green goddess dressing!

How to Make the Best Ranch Dressing From Scratch

This better than store-bought ranch is incredibly simple to make. If you love ranch, you must give this homemade version a try! This creamy dressing is just as easy to make as this creamy blue cheese, our favorite creamy honey mustard sauce, and our homemade Italian vinaigrette (which doubles as a marinade)!

Here’s what you will need to make ranch dressing at home:

Sour cream and mayonnaise — For the best ranch dressing, use both. A combination of sour cream and mayonnaise make the dressing extra creamy. Mayonnaise can be heavy by itself. Adding sour cream lightens up the dressing a bit. If you’re used to only using mayonnaise, try adding a bit of sour cream next time. It’s a game changer. If you’re in the mood, you can make homemade mayo, too. Here’s our no-fail mayonnaise recipe.

Buttermilk (or regular milk) — We don’t typically have buttermilk in the fridge (unless we’re making these buttermilk pancakes), but it is absolutely worth buying when making your own ranch dressing. It adds an extra creamy tangy flavor that’s tough to achieve without it. If you don’t have buttermilk on hand or would prefer to skip it, that’s okay. Use regular milk instead, and then add a touch more fresh lemon juice.

Worcestershire sauce — Not every ranch recipe out there calls for Worcestershire, but let me tell you, it’s a game changer in flavor. Don’t believe me? Leave it out when you make the sauce, taste it, and then add a teaspoon (or two) of Worcestershire sauce and see how the flavor changes.

Fresh lemon juice or vinegar — Even with buttermilk, the dressing needs a bit of lift and lemon juice or white wine vinegar does the trick nicely.

Fresh herbs — We pile lots of fresh herbs into our dressing. Add dill, parsley and chives for the best flavor. If you don’t have access to fresh herbs, dried herbs will work. We’ve added a tip in the recipe for substituting dried herbs if you need to.

Onion powder, garlic powder, salt & pepper — These give our dressing that unmistakable ranch flavor. I find that dried onion and garlic powder are better suited than fresh in this recipe.

Just a few seconds of stirring turns the dressing into a creamy and delicious mixture.

For a lighter dressing with fewer calories, you can swap the mayonnaise for light mayo and the sour cream for plain yogurt. The final flavor will be quite different, but still delicious in its own right.

How long will homemade ranch dressing last

This easy homemade dressing lasts for 3 to 4 days when stored in the fridge. I wish it lasted longer, but all those fresh herbs start to lose something the longer the dressing sits. I keep mine stored in a mason jar.

In fact, there’s a jar of it in our fridge now ready to be used in our favorite dishes. Here are a few suggestions for how to use this easy ranch dressing:

• Skip store-bought salad dressing and use it on your favorite homemade salads. It’s especially delicious with cucumbers, carrots, baby greens, kale, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, sweet bell peppers, cauliflower, and broccoli.
• Make a big green salad, add a few slices of this juicy grilled chicken, some sliced avocado, and then drizzle over some ranch.
• Add to a small bowl and use as a dipping sauce for fresh vegetables, roasted veggies (like these sweet potato fries), or anything buffalo flavored. We especially love these chicken wings and these baked buffalo cauliflower wings.