Home-Made Ranch Dressing

 

 

 

I adore salads in all their guises but I loathe tasteless ready-made salad dressings. It’s the one preserve of my cooking repertoire that I jealously guard and insist on making from scratch. I often make my own mayonnaise but am not so precious as to insist you do but do urge you to make something better than the bottles your supermarket offers. Many of these dressings are loaded with sugars, use poor or inferior seasonings and can rise off the scales in terms of fat content.

 

So today I bring you the simplest of dressings –  a very versatile

ranch one that will help to banish any boring salad. It is flavoursome and creamy, has only about 15 calories per serving and keeps well in the refrigerator. Use it to dress a salad or as a dip for vegetable sticks and slices. It is often my ‘go-to’ snack when I get an attack of the munchies!

 

 

RANCH SALAD DRESSING

Ingredients

METRIC/US

160 ml/generous 2/3 cup skimmed milk

2 tsp white wine vinegar

160 ml/generous 2/3 cup extra light mayonnaise

½ tsp garlic powder

¼ tsp onion powder

1 tsp mustard powder

1 tsp chopped fresh parsley 

1 bunch fresh chives, snipped or about 4 spring onion/scallions, chopped

salt and freshly ground black pepper

 

Method

1.  Mix the milk with the vinegar in a bowl and allow to stand for 10 minutes.
2.  Beat the milk mixture with the mayonnaise, garlic powder, onion powder and mustard powder until smooth.
3.  Add the parsley, chives and salt and pepper to taste. Cover and chill to thicken slightly. The dressing improves and becomes more flavoursome with keeping.

SERVES 14

WLS PORTION: ½-1

V suitable for Vegetarians

 

CALORIES PER PORTION: 14.9

PROTEIN: 0.6g

CARBOHYDRATE: 2g

FAT: 0.5g

 

Image courtesy of delameredairy.co.uk