I don't know about you but I really enjoy ranch dressing. The stuff in the bottle is okay, but if you look at the ingredients it contains some not so good stuff like MSG and added sugar. It also has a lot of added sodium. I'm trying to watch my sodium so I decided to make a salt-free ranch mix, then I can control the salt whenever I make the dressing or add it to a recipe. It's super easy to make your own ranch mix. If you make a batch of this up, you can have it already on hand to make ranch dressing or add it into other recipes. Let's get started!
Salt-free Ranch Dressing Mix
Ingredients:
4 Tbsp of dried parsley
4 tsp of dried dill
4 tsp of onion powder
4 tsp of minced dried onion
2 tsp of garlic powder
1 tsp of ground black pepper
Combine the spices in a bowl and from here you can process them for a bit in a mini food processor to mix well and make some of the parsley smaller or you can use a coffee grinder as a spice grinder. Then place in a container and make sure to label it. I used a small canning jar.
If you use a coffee grinder, make sure you keep a separate one for coffee so that you don't get spice flavor where you don't want it and coffee flavor in your spices. Some may prefer just to leave it as is and that's okay too. The first time I did mine in the coffee grinder I got kind of carried away and got it a bit too fine, but I feel it's really personal preference.
When you're ready to make ranch dressing simply mix 1 Tbsp of this mix, 1/3 cup of mayonnaise and 1/4 a cup of buttermilk. This is where you might add a dash of salt if you like as well. Now that's just a starting point, you can add more of the mayo and buttermilk if you like. Maybe even try plain greek yogurt for the mayo or mix them both together. Lots of different ways to do it. I found mine was a bit too thick at first and added some milk to thin it out a bit. Again, personal preference and what you're using it for will make a difference. I hope you enjoy it!
