Sauces & dressings · Salad dressings

Buttermilk ranch

Name: Buttermilk ranch
Prep time: 10 min
Total time: 10 min
Yield: 10 servings
Ingredients: 1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk; scant 1/2 cup mayonnaise; 1/3 cup whole-milk Greek yogurt; 2 tbsp fresh dill, chopped; 2 tbsp fresh chives, snipped; 2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped; 3/4 tsp garlic powder; 3/4 tsp onion powder; 2 tsp juice lemon; 1/2 tsp salt; 1/2 tsp black pepper

America's favourite dressing, made properly: buttermilk, mayo and a full handful of fresh herbs. The bottle can't touch it, and you decide the mayo.

Time: 10 min (10 prep + 0 cook)
Servings: 10
Per serving: 83 kcal
Protein: 1 g

Both directions are legitimate — the score measures fullness per calorie, not virtue. Every version is the same dish, rebalanced.

Ingredients

1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk120 g
scant 1/2 cup mayonnaise100 g
1/3 cup whole-milk Greek yogurt80 g
2 tbsp fresh dill, chopped6 g
2 tbsp fresh chives, snipped6 g
2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped6 g
3/4 tsp garlic powder2 g
3/4 tsp onion powder2 g
2 tsp juice lemon10 g
1/2 tsp salt3 g
1/2 tsp black pepper1 g

Every ingredient links to its food page — same data, same score, same formula.

Steps

Whisk everything together.
Rest 30 minutes in the fridge — dried-herb ranch needs it to hydrate, and fresh-herb ranch needs it to marry.
Keeps a week. Thin with buttermilk for dressing, leave thick for dipping.

Alternative

Greek yogurt ranchthe yogurt-forward version45

Why this score

easy to overeat

Dense calories with little protein, volume or fiber to fill you up.

Three routes to fullness — one is enough

6% of kcal

65% water

2 g/Mcal

What pulls it down

How scores work

Computed on the finished dish, not an average of the parts: 832 kcal goes into the pot, 336 g of ingredients comes out as ~330 g of food → 252 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water, and energy density is the score's biggest lever — so we show the math. Full formula here.

Per

Calories: 252
Protein: (6%); 4 g
Fat: (86%); 24 g
Carbohydrates: (8%); 5 g
of which sugar: 1 g
Fiber: <1 g
Sodium: 590 mg

Percentages are the share of calories from each macronutrient.

Computed from the ingredients' USDA data — nothing typed by hand. Every number is traceable, every score recomputable.

More sauces & dressings

Photo: AI-generated. Nutrition and score are computed from the ingredients with the published formula — this recipe hasn't been kitchen-tested by us yet.