buttermilk

Homemade Ranch Dressing Recipe

There’s no need to buy it from the shelves, homemade buttermilk ranch dressing is one of the easiest, and tastiest, dressings to make from scratch.

I have a go-to salad dressing that I have to admit, I’m rather famous in the family for.

It’s a vinaigrette with tarragon and is made in our house on a rotation of at least once a week. Why haven’t I posted it on the blog yet? I’m asking myself that same question. I need to remedy that stat.

This homemade buttermilk ranch dressing isn’t one I make too often, but when I do, it is pretty much drizzled, dipped and guzzled down so there’s never much left over. I’m sharing it today as a preview of what’s coming your way tomorrow, where it is going to lace not a salad, but a sandwich that will leave you wishing for one more handful of potato chips, and just one more drizzle and dip of ranch dressing, because as Smudge declares, “Mom. This. Is. So. Good.”

She’s right, you know.

see more: Pulled Chicken Sandwiches with Creamy Ranch Sauce

Ranch Dressing Ingredients

This dressing gets its tang from the combo of mayo, sour cream and buttermilk. I used full-fat ingredients, but if you want to create your own lower calorie versions, you can simply sub low-fat mayo, sour cream or give Greek yogurt a try. Buttermilk is naturally low-fat so you’re in the clear there. I like my dressing on the thicker side (reflected in the amounts in the recipe below), so add more buttermilk to your preference.

Fresh herbs are essential here, but I do like to use dried dill in this recipe as it’s a bit more concentrated in flavor. If you simply don’t have the fresh herbs, go for dried, a much better option than skipping altogether.

You’ll find the recognizable taste of ranch comes from the nugget of garlic in the dressing. I pretty much always prefer pressing my garlic, but if you don’t have a garlic press, simply mash the garlic in 1/8 teaspoon of salt to create a paste then add to the rest of the ingredients.

continue to the recipe… about Homemade Ranch Dressing Recipe

Buttermilk Blue Cheese Mashed Potatoes

Butter and the tang of buttermilk with blue cheese give these 5 ingredient mashed potatoes a rich flavor that pairs perfectly with chicken, beef or pork.

It’s okay to admit it. We all know it’s true. The best part of dinner, especially when it’s a holiday dinner, is the side dishes. And when the side dishes are rocked with flavor, the main dish can just scooch on over to the sidelines. Unless you’re slathering a turkey with hot and spicy sauce (like I did), because then we’ve got a match!

When you’re operating in the multiple side dish zone (which seems to be the theme of nearly each and every Thanksgiving table) it’s a good idea to keep those recipes simple. Complicated, overwrought 182 ingredient recipes just aren’t what the frazzled home-cooking-hostess needs when guests will be sampling a bite of this and a dig into that and complicates the beauty in simplicity that our palates crave when loading our buffet plate into a mound of food that would serve a family of four.

Simple you say? Let’s go with it. But don’t make it boring. Let’s add 2 different ingredients to the basic mashers to make them smashers. Yes, I did say that.

What Do You Put In Mashed Potatoes

These decadent 5-ingredient mashed potatoes start off with your basic russet or Yukon Gold potato that has a dryer, lighter texture when mashed. Save the waxy white or red potatoes when your tater needs to hold up to the blanketing of mayo (or yikes! Miracle Whip) and mustard link in my favorite potato salad,

My mashed potato 5-ingredient mashed list is:

Yukon gold potatoes for the creamiest blend, cut into quarters for quicker cooking
Buttermilk, to give the potatoes a bright tang (you could use cream, half and half, or milk instead)
Real butter. Always real butter.
Freshly crumbled blue cheese. Please, please, please, crumble your own fresh blue cheese rather than buying the pre-packaged crumbles. There’s a difference you most certainly will taste.
Chives or really thin sliced green onion, just for a bit of garnish

When boiling the potatoes, always salt the water so the potatoes are flavored as they cook. My husband always reminds me to add the salt after the water has come to a boil so the salt doesn’t pit the bottoms of the pans. And, I always quarter my potatoes before cooking so they cook faster, usually in about 10-15 minutes or until fork-tender.

How to Get Smooth and Creamy Mashed Potatoes

After making this recipe, I learned a few new potato tricks from Aimee’s post on Secrets to the Best Mashed Potatoes. I’ll definitely be incorporating secret #1 into my next batch. You definitely need her tips in your mashed potato arsenal.

Most home cooks use a hand blender to cream their potatoes, but if you blend for too long, your potatoes will turn to glue. Instead, do like the pros do for restaurant-style super smooth and creamy mashed potatoes without any lumps, use one of these kitchen gadgets instead:

If you make this recipe, please let me know! Bookmark this recipe and leave a comment below, or take a photo and tag me on Instagram with #foodiecrusheats.

3.9 from 10 votes

Blue Cheese Mashed Potatoes

Butter and the tang of buttermilk with blue cheese give these mashed potatoes a rich flavor that pairs perfectly with chicken, beef or pork.

Servings 8 -10 servings

Ingredients

2 1/12 pounds russet potatoes
1 teaspoon kosher salt plus more for seasoning
2/3 cup buttermilk
6 tablespoons butter
4 ounces blue cheese crumbled, plus more for garnish
1/4 cup chives plus more for garnish
Freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

Peel potatoes and rinse under cold water. Cut each potato into quarters and place in 4-quart saucepan. Cover with cold water and bring to boil. Add 1 teaspoon kosher salt; then reduce heat to low boil. Cook until potatoes are tender and easily pierced with fork, about 12 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat buttermilk and butter together in small saucepan over medium heat until butter has melted and mixture is hot but not boiling.
Drain potatoes, return to pot and warm over low heat 1-2 minutes for the moisture to evaporate. Use ricer, potato masher or food mill to mash potatoes. Stir in buttermilk and milk mixture 1/3 cup at time until potatoes are consistency you prefer. Stir in crumbled blue cheese and chives and season with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste. Garnish with additional blue cheese and chives.

More Recipes to Serve Alongside Mashed Potatoes

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Macaroni Salad with Smoked Mozzarella and Proscuitto

This easy, tangy pasta salad mixes traditional macaroni salad with Mediterranean flavors to create a new family favorite potluck salad.

Common etiquette rules that if you’re invited to a friendly BBQ, you offer to bring something to add to the pot.

So when I ask the big question, I often hear, “Sure that would be great. How about a side dish?”

Many hosts think they’re doing you a favor by offering the wide berth of side dish options. But this simple phrase can throw some self-respecting cooks into a triple gainer upside down axel with a spin.

Bringing a “little something” to a barbecue or potluck shouldn’t be that hard, but the vast spectrum of “side dish” gets some of us sideways.

But it doesn’t have to be like that at all…continue to the recipe… about Macaroni Salad with Smoked Mozzarella and Proscuitto

Banana Bread Muffins with Toasted Coconut

I spend a lot of time looking at recipes. I read cookbooks like most read from books from the NY Times bestseller list. My bedside is littered with layers upon layers of food magazines from across the world. And man, of course I look at a lot (a lot!) of food blogs for crazy good inspiration.

But one of the biggest traps I find myself getting into when I’m creating a weeknight dinner or Sunday breakfast, is I end up cooking to create content for this blog, instead of for fun or frivolity.

Yes, cooking is creative and yes, I love it. But sometimes, I don’t want to think about composing photos of ingredients or taking photos of the finished product or swatting hungry hands away from the hot goods before they can dig in.

Sometimes I just want to recreate something delicious I see from a food blogger online. To be inspired by someone else’s recipe. To take it for a spin and give it a go. Just because it looks so. dang. good. rather than having to work for it.

And this, THIS, is a prime example…

continue to the recipe… about Banana Bread Muffins with Toasted Coconut

Roasted Butternut Squash Butter Lettuce Salad with Spicy Avocado Dressing

Let’s talk about getting skinny. Ugh. The worst. Maybe we shouldn’t.

It’s been a winter of cocooning, hibernating and grazing. What else is one to do when its been one of the coldest and snowiest on record? We need to keep warm, right? we need strength to push the shovel through another 8 inches of snow. And what does that better than a little extra girth easily hidden—and ignored—under long sweaters and puffy coats? Ah, thank the Lord for the style Goddesses.

Well guess what peeps? The groundhog spoke and the style Goddesses listened and spring is right around the corner. Time to lose the bulk and take a look at those pops of colors and short shorts.

Last week I asked my Facebook peeps what you’d like to see more of on the blog: More ooey gooey or more healthy recipes? Your answer? Pretty much straight down the middle.

continue to the recipe… about Roasted Butternut Squash Butter Lettuce Salad with Spicy Avocado Dressing

Red Velvet Cupcakes Plus 10 Red Velvet Recipes With a Twist

And another one bites the dust. As in years. As in last week was my birthday.

It was a whirlwind week, filled with workin’ the day job, my once-a-week teaching gig and hitting SLC’s Grand America hotel for my second foray attending the Altitude Design Summit, or more fondly know as “Alt”. I met some incredible bloggers, soaked in generously-shared knowledge, worked my Twitter and Instagram accounts to the bone and gawked admirably at the uber-fashionable fashionistas attending. Stay tuned for some Alt highlights and what I learned in my next post.

And then Saturday arrived, my BIG day. It was my birthday.

This wasn’t an ordinary birthday, it was one of those “milestones” that we all dread, and no I’m not talking the big 30. Sneaking into the crevices of my well-worn brain was a phrase I’d heard the day before from Alt’s keynote speaker Gretchen Rubin, author of the NY Times Bestseller The Happiness Project, “The days are long, the years are short.” Yep, that’s pretty much life in a nutshell.

Birthdays are a good life-check. As in, it’s time to live your life. And so that’s what I’m going to do. Live my life, la vida loca. Bring it old man time, I’ll show you!

My Smudge and my man hatched a plan to surprise me on my bday morning, and that they did.

continue to the recipe… about Red Velvet Cupcakes Plus 10 Red Velvet Recipes With a Twist

Market Street Grill Fried Calamari and Plate to Pixel Food Photography Workshop

What do you get when you take Utah’s gorgeous summer light, a room of aspiring food photographers itching to master their cameras plus an even more enlightening photography and food styling instructor?

For 13 lucky students it all added up to Tartelette’s Helene Dujardin‘s SLC Food Photography Workshop at the base of Utah’s Big Cottonwood Canyon—Market Street Grill Cottonwood.

FoodieCrush Magazine presents the SLC Plate to Pixel Food Photography Workshop

Jim of Fab Frugal Food, Sandra of Everyday Southwest and Radhika of Just Homemade wonder which one was shot with natural light and which with strobe? Only the photographer knows.

Market Street Grill Cottonwood

Helene lines up her shot—and scores

from left > Becky of Vintage Mixer, Maria of Two Peas and Their Pod, Annalise of Completely Delicious, Kelley of Mountain Mama Cooks

Looks like Dara of Cookin’ Canuck ‘s food photo bible has been put to the test

The click-clack of computer keyboards and scribbling in notepads was swift and constant as attendees copiously took notes—getting hands-on answers from Helene herself to the questions every aspiring food photographer wants to know:

what ISO & F-stop do you shoot in? (she shoots mostly on Aperature priority but also manual in her studio since she knows the lighting conditions intimately. Do what feels right and you do best, nobody will be the wiser when they look at the shot so long as its exposed correctly)
how do you use fill cards and what the heck are they? (white foam core to reflect and bounce light into your subject, black to absorb light and take it away)
how do you style your pics to make them look so yummy? (hold back a few items/ingredients from the recipe to use as props in the shot, like a squeezed lemon or a couple of berries and sugar to tell a story through your propping and storyboards)
do you shoot with lights and if so what studio lighting kit do you use? (not much but when she does, it’s this one).

Reviewing shots while shooting tethered with Lightroom

Sasha of SashaTenorio and Radhika of Just Homemade soaking it all in

from left > Maria of Two Peas and Their Pod, Deborah of Taste and Tell, Misty of Sticks in the Mud , Lindsey of Cafe Johnsonia, Annelise of Completely Delicious and Shirley of Munchkins Are Us

Lightroom tips and tricks

Shooting from above? Shoot straight down. On the ground. Kinda like a rock…rock…rock…rock lobster.

Through a thoughtful presentation showcasing step by step examples of her own photo work plus the photo tips and styling tricks that have taken her from amateur foodie photog blogger to a sought after commercial entity, Helene brought her book Plate to Pixel to life for the studious crew.

When working with long tendrils of pasta, do the twist

The essentials: good lenses, clamps, reflectors, Plate to Pixel bible and pretty food

from left > Deborah of Taste and Tell, Becky of Vintage Mixer, Winter of The Redd Party, Annalise of Completely Delicious, Kelley of Mountain Mama Cooks , and Misty of Sticks In the Mud

Market Street Grill’s Fresh Atlantic Salmon and creamy caesar dressed salad

After a tasty lunch it was time to roll up the sleeves and get to work—to get to the guts of the day, where the real teaching went into full metal jacket action.

As the photographers maneuvered their way through sets of 4-Layer Decadent Chocolate Cake to Fried Calamari to Cajun Fettucini, Helene shadowed each photographer and assisted in creating their own photos. She answered questions about composition, exposure and anything that came to the minds of these insatiable picture takers.

Radihka shoots Cajun Fettucine

Dara of Cookin’ Canuck and Aggie of Aggie’s Kitchen get coaching from Helene

Deborah of Taste and Tell takes on the 4 Layer Chocolate Cake

There was a bun in the oven, but whose was it?

Helene coaches lighting techniques—bounce and reflect

In addition to a gift certificate donated by Koo de Ker Boutique, some of the the su-weet swag in our goodie bags included Chocolat Artisnal Chocolates, Sweet Tooth Fairy Cake Bites, Bare Escentuals Bare Minerals makeup and a custom print and notebook to keep track of all those tips.

Sandra, Deborah and Misty work the reflectors; goodies from the goodie bags

Radhika of Just Homemade, was FoodieCrush’s contest winner and flew in from Houston TX to attend the conference. For just one day. Yes, she wanted it THAT bad!

and that bun in the oven is Maria’s soon to be pea

Wow. It was a seriously big day for everyone that attended, inspiring so many ideas, images and notebooks full of tips. Thank you Helene for letting FoodieCrush be a part of it, we loooove photography and influencing aspiring photographers in hopes to see more of it in the pages of our upcoming magazine and the blog.

To see more pics from the day, check out our facebook workshop album.

Huge thanks to Market Street Grill for hosting the event. And to give you a taste of the deliciousness we experienced, enjoy their recipe for Market Street Fried Calamari.

5 from 1 vote

All photos > foodiecrush

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Homemade Ranch Dressing Recipe

Ranch Dressing Ingredients

Buttermilk Blue Cheese Mashed Potatoes

What Do You Put In Mashed Potatoes

How to Get Smooth and Creamy Mashed Potatoes

Blue Cheese Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients

Instructions

More Recipes to Serve Alongside Mashed Potatoes

Macaroni Salad with Smoked Mozzarella and Proscuitto

Banana Bread Muffins with Toasted Coconut

Roasted Butternut Squash Butter Lettuce Salad with Spicy Avocado Dressing

Red Velvet Cupcakes Plus 10 Red Velvet Recipes With a Twist

Market Street Grill Fried Calamari and Plate to Pixel Food Photography Workshop

How to Make the Best Potato Salad

How to Make Classic Macaroni Salad

How to Make the Best Grilled Salmon

The Best Greek Chicken Marinade

buttermilk

Ranch Dressing Ingredients

What Do You Put In Mashed Potatoes

How to Get Smooth and Creamy Mashed Potatoes

Blue Cheese Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients

Instructions

More Recipes to Serve Alongside Mashed Potatoes

Follow @foodiecrush on Instagram

5 Quick and Healthy No-Sweat Simple Meals