One of my friend’s college age son, will not eat anything without a bottle of Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing.
This includes things like soup (think clam chowder with ranch) and dessert (think chocolate chip cookies and cheesecake with ranch).
To each their own, indeed.
Since this thread has veered off into blue cheese territory. Way back when, HVR had a bacon/blue cheese dressing packet. Just add milk. It was good. When they discontinued it I started making my own homemade blue cheese dressing with a half packet.
As for the original Q - People just like what they like. The same could be said of Sriracha . Some people put it in/on everything. Tried the original twice and thought what is the big deal with this stuff.
Ranch dressing might the only food I don’t eat. The problem is that it has become so ubiquitous.
Regardless, the family who tapped into this previously untapped market made a go of it. Big time. I have to give them credit for that.
Ranch is my #2 preference (after blue cheese) on salads out of the house. I make my own, which I think is better than bottled, although obviously I’m biased. And I would never put it on anything that isn’t salad or crudite. Ranch on pizza makes about as much sense to me as Bosco on pizza.
One good thing about ranch dressing is that it replaced Green Goddess.
I had a friend who was friends with the Hensons and used to help fill those little packets of HVR dressing back in the beginning days.
Yes, but homemade Green Goddess is divine.
Preach.
I like it . Pizza dipped into it . Not bad . With a cold beer . On a hot day for lunch.
NO! Why do you hate pizza? What has pizza done to you?
Pizza has been good to me . Made my own . Prefer a little tomato sauce with no cheese . Topped with uncooked fresh anchovies. Ok a sprinkle of parmigiana reggiano.
When working occasionally I get a pizza at a local pizzeria in dunsmuir. I Dip slices into ranch . Big deal .I have had pizza in Rome . Lol . I admit when I was in Los Angeles in the late eighty’s . I ordered the barbecued chicken pizza from California pizza kitchen .Or whatever it was . Enjoyable.
A smaller Midwestern thin-crust pizza chain called Monical’s served their pizza with Russian dressing (the bright red syrupy kind, like below).
To OP, I’m not sure why ranch dressing has become such a craze. I can take it or leave it, generally - it’s fine but I don’t look for it and don’t have any in the house. I like berry vinaigrettes on salads and veggies are fine as they are (although sometimes a fat channel in a celery stick cries out for peanut butter or cream cheese). As others mention, if I’m having anything with hot wings I’d rather blue cheese.
Maybe it started as a convenient way of getting kids to eat veggies and people just kept with it. I confess to making toppings stuff to get my kids to eat veggies when very young - thin cheese béchamel sauces for broccoli, sweet-salty cream sauces for lima beans and peas, brown sugar glazes on carrots, etc.
That sounds like something one kid would dare another to eat in the school cafeteria.
If you don’t know it already, look up the Hidden Valley Ranch story. There are wonderful stories behind great salad dressings such as Caesar, Thousand Island, Louis, , Green Goddess and so many different takes on the original recipes.
Personally I don’t like it and avoid it. But when I was growing up, 30 yrs ago, they had a massive marketing campaign. Their t.v. commercials were everywhere. No other salad dressing even came close to H.V.'s full court ad press. I would not be at all surprised if they built a large fan base due to their ads, and those people have carried on with it as a household product, feeding it to their kids and securing it as a multi-generational product.
https://www.whoinvent.com/who-invented-ranch-dressing/
“Ranch dressing was originally created by plumber and construction worker Steve Henson, who came up with the dressing while working in the Alaskan bush in the 1950s. Since perishable ingredients — like fresh herbs and garlic — were difficult to acquire in that part of the country, Henson experimented with dry seasonings like garlic and onion powder, dried herbs and powdered pepper. They could be added to mayonnaise and buttermilk for an herbaceous and tangy dressing”
With regard to the original question; I don’t recall having had it, but I probably have. I do keep leftover buttermilkin my freezer for things like salad dressing, so maybe I will check some out.
I had never really associated Cool Ranch Doritos with Ranch dressing until recently. I like Cool Ranch Doritos, and don’t like Bottled Ranch dressing enough to choose it.
