Cook: Healthy Homemade Ranch Dressing

Today, I'm thankful for technology. Ok yeah sounds like a weird one, but just think where we'd be without it! I'm thankful to have a computer than is reliable and internet that is fast enough for our needs. My husband is a musician and so technology is important to his work. Having these things makes finishing my degree possible for me and making beautiful music possible for him. Technological advances in the past 50 years is absolutely astounding. We've come a long way! Sometimes it's nice to "black out" from some technology for a bit. It's also important we can function without in for those times where the power goes out or we just need to get away!

Recently I gave you all a quick and easy recipe to make your own ketchup. Delicious, right? Today I'm going to move on to another common condiment, ranch dressing! The original recipe is from Caffeinated Chronicles of a Supermom. She includes a quick recipe that takes no time to whip up! The original recipe can be found here. I, of course, had to tweek the recipe a little. My husband is a big fan of ranch so if he approves it, it must be good!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of plain, nonfat Greek yogurt
• 1 packet of ranch dressing (not the dip packet, that's different)
• 1/2 cup of milk (I used organic 2%, she used 1%...you choose which you prefer!)

Directions: 

Are you ready for this? Whisk the ingredients together. Done. Ok well you're going to want to pour it into a jar or reuse a clean ranch bottle, but really, that's it!

As far as the consistency goes, start adding milk slowly so when you've reached the consistency you want, you can just stop there. Some people like a thicker ranch, others like thinner. I used maybe a little less than 1/2 a cup and I think that the consistency was a little bit thinner than that of store bought. Then again, that's totally preference! Adding a little more or using a little less milk shouldn't effect the taste at all. 

All the ingredients together.

Whisk.

Whisk until it looks more like this! (Hey now, rhymin'!)

Pour it into your jar or cleaned out empty ranch bottle. If you have a picky family, use the empty ranch bottle so they don't say "Ew, what's this? It's different!"

Making this recipe once filled my jar a little over the 12oz mark. If you like your ranch thicker, just add less milk. Doing so could make fitting double the recipe into a 24oz jar like this. 

I filled the jar when I doubled the recipe. There was actually a little leftover so I put it in a small container for my husband's lunch tomorrow!

 Simple, right? Now go out and do it! It's healthier and cheaper than buying bottle after bottle of store ranch!

Are you a ranch or a ketchup person? Or how about BBQ or honey mustard? Which should I try next?

*Update 11/9/12: So...my husband didn't like it all that much. Oops. I was really hoping he would! I'm not a huge fan of ranch so I never tried it. But just because my husband wasn't a fan doesn't mean it's not good! Has anyone else tried it and gotten a good result? I'm thinking if I made it a little thicker than it might be better. We'll see! I definitely would like to try again, maybe a slightly different recipe. Any suggestions?

Till next time,
Catherine

I've linked up to Make Your Own Mondays (8/26/13) with Nourishing Treasures!