Ranch dressing is a savory, creamy
American salad dressing usually made from
buttermilk
Buttermilk is a fermented dairy drink. Traditionally, it was the liquid left behind after churning butter out of cultured cream. As most modern butter in Western countries is not made with cultured cream but uncultured sweet cream, most mode ...
,
salt
In common usage, salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl). When used in food, especially in granulated form, it is more formally called table salt. In the form of a natural crystalline mineral, salt is also known as r ...
,
garlic
Garlic (''Allium sativum'') is a species of bulbous flowering plants in the genus '' Allium''. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chives, Welsh onion, and Chinese onion. Garlic is native to central and south Asia, str ...
,
onion
An onion (''Allium cepa'' , from Latin ), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus '' Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onion which was classifie ...
,
black pepper
Black pepper (''Piper nigrum'') is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit (the peppercorn), which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit is a drupe (stonefruit) which is about in diameter ...
, and
herbs (commonly
chives
Chives, scientific name ''Allium schoenoprasum'', is a species of flowering plant in the family Amaryllidaceae.
A perennial plant, ''A. schoenoprasum'' is widespread in nature across much of Eurasia and North America. It is the only spe ...
,
parsley
Parsley, or garden parsley (''Petroselinum crispum''), is a species of flowering plant in the family Apiaceae that is native to Greece, Morocco and the former Yugoslavia. It has been introduced and naturalisation (biology), naturalized in Eur ...
and
dill
Dill (''Anethum graveolens'') is an annual herb in the celery family Apiaceae. It is native to North Africa, Iran, and the Arabian Peninsula; it is grown widely in Eurasia, where its leaves and seeds are used as a herb or spice for flavouring ...
), mixed into a sauce based on
mayonnaise
Mayonnaise (), colloquially referred to as "mayo" (), is a thick, creamy sauce with a rich and tangy taste that is commonly used on sandwiches, hamburgers, Salad#Bound salads, bound salads, and French fries. It also forms the base for various o ...
or another oil
emulsion
An emulsion is a mixture of two or more liquids that are normally Miscibility, immiscible (unmixable or unblendable) owing to liquid-liquid phase separation. Emulsions are part of a more general class of two-phase systems of matter called colloi ...
.
Sour cream
Sour cream (sometimes known as soured cream in British English) is a dairy product obtained by fermenting regular cream with certain kinds of lactic acid bacteria. The bacterial culture, which is introduced either deliberately or naturall ...
and
yogurt
Yogurt (; , from , ; also spelled yoghurt, yogourt or yoghourt) is a food produced by bacterial Fermentation (food), fermentation of milk. Fermentation of sugars in the milk by these bacteria produces lactic acid, which acts on milk protein to ...
are sometimes used in addition to, or as a substitute for, buttermilk and mayonnaise.
Ranch has been the best-selling salad dressing in the United States since 1992, when it overtook
Italian dressing
In American cuisine, Italian dressing is a vinaigrette-type salad dressing that consists of water, vinegar or lemon juice, vegetable oil, chopped bell peppers, sugar or corn syrup, herbs and spices (including oregano, fennel, dill and ...
.
It is also popular in the United States and
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
as a
dip, and as a flavoring for
potato chip
Potato chips (North American English and Australian English; often just chip) or crisp (British English and Hiberno-English) are thin slices of potato (or a thin deposit of potato paste) that has been deep frying, deep fried, baking, baked, ...
s and other foods. In 2017, 40% of Americans named ranch as their favorite dressing, according to a study by the Association for Dressings and Sauces.
Ranch dressing is most prominently used in the
Midwest
The Midwestern United States (also referred to as the Midwest, the Heartland or the American Midwest) is one of the four census regions defined by the United States Census Bureau. It occupies the northern central part of the United States. It ...
region.
History
Invention
Ranch dressing was invented in the early 1950s by Steven Henson (1918–2007), a
Thayer, Nebraska, native working as a
plumbing contractor in the
Anchorage, Alaska
Anchorage, officially the Municipality of Anchorage, is the List of cities in Alaska, most populous city in the U.S. state of Alaska. With a population of 291,247 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it contains nearly 40 percent of ...
, area, while cooking to feed his work crews. Henson retired from plumbing at age 35 and moved with his wife Gayle to
Santa Barbara County, California
Santa Barbara County, officially the County of Santa Barbara (), is a County (United States), county located in Southern California. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 448,229. The county seat is Santa Barbara, California ...
, where in 1956 he purchased a
guest ranch
A guest ranch, also known as a dude ranch, is a type of ranch oriented towards visitors or tourism. It is considered a form of agrotourism.
History
Guest ranches arose in response to the romanticization of the American West that began to occur ...
in
San Marcos Pass and renamed it Hidden Valley Ranch.
Henson served the salad dressing he had created at his Hidden Valley Ranch
steakhouse
A steakhouse, steak house, or chophouse is a restaurant that specializes in steaks and chops. Modern steakhouses may also carry other cuts of meat including poultry, roast prime rib, and veal, as well as fish and other seafood.
History
Choph ...
, which became popular, and guests bought jars to take home.
The first commercial customer for ranch dressing was Henson's friend, Audrey Ovington, who was the owner of
Cold Spring Tavern.
By 1957, Henson began selling packages of dressing mix in stores.
Henson began selling the dry ingredients in packages by mail for 75 cents a piece, and eventually devoted every room in his house to the operation.
By the mid-1960s, the guest ranch had closed, but Henson's "ranch dressing" mail-order business was thriving.
The Hensons incorporated Hidden Valley Ranch Food Products, Inc., and opened a factory to manufacture ranch dressing in larger volumes, which they first distributed to supermarkets in
the Southwest, and eventually nationwide.
Commercialization
Manufacturing of the mix was later moved to
San Jose, then to
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...
, and then to
Sparks, Nevada, in 1972.
[
In October 1972, the Hidden Valley Ranch brand was bought by ]Clorox
The Clorox Company (formerly Clorox Chemical Company) is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer of consumer and professional products. As of 2024, the Oakland, California-based company had approximately 8,000 employees worldwide. N ...
for $8 million,[ and Henson retired.][
]Kraft Foods
Kraft Foods Group, Inc. was an American food manufacturing and processing conglomerate (company), conglomerate, split from Kraft Foods Inc. on October 1, 2012, and was headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It became part of Kraft Heinz on July ...
and General Foods
General Foods Corporation was a company whose direct predecessor was established in the United States by C. W. Post, Charles William (C. W.) Post as the Postum Cereal Company in 1895.
The company changed its name to "General Foods" in 1929, a ...
introduced similar dry seasoning packets labeled as "ranch style". Clorox reformulated the Hidden Valley Ranch dressing several times to make it more convenient for consumers, including adding buttermilk flavoring to the seasoning, allowing the dressing to be made using much less expensive regular milk
Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of lactating mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfeeding, breastfed human infants) before they are able to digestion, digest solid food. ...
.[ In 1983, Clorox developed a non-refrigerated bottled formulation.
During the 1980s, ranch became a common snack food flavor, starting with Cool Ranch Doritos in 1987. Hidden Valley Ranch Wavy Lay's potato chips were introduced in 1994.][
In 1992, ranch surpassed Italian dressing to become the best-selling salad dressing in the United States.]
During the 1990s, Hidden Valley had three child-oriented variations of ranch dressing: pizza, nacho cheese, and taco flavors.
In 1994, Domino’s first started offering ranch sauce as a condiment with its chicken wings and pizzas, a combination that quickly became popular with customers.
As of 2002, Clorox subsidiary
A subsidiary, subsidiary company, or daughter company is a company (law), company completely or partially owned or controlled by another company, called the parent company or holding company, which has legal and financial control over the subsidia ...
Hidden Valley Manufacturing Company was producing ranch packets and bottled dressings at two large factories, in Reno, Nevada
Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada–California border. It is the county seat and most populous city of Washoe County, Nevada, Washoe County. Sitting in the High Eastern Sierra foothills, ...
, and Wheeling, Illinois.[
In 2017, Hidden Valley Ranch Products turned over $450 million.]
Production
Ranch dressing is produced by many manufacturers, including Hidden Valley, Ken's, Kraft
Kraft Foods Group, Inc. was an American food manufacturing and processing conglomerate (company), conglomerate, split from Kraft Foods Inc. on October 1, 2012, and was headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It became part of Kraft Heinz on July ...
, Litehouse, Marie's, Newman's Own
Newman's Own is an American food company headquartered in Westport, Connecticut. Founded in 1982 by actor Paul Newman and author A. E. Hotchner, the company donates all of its after-tax profits to charity through Newman's Own Foundation, a pri ...
, and Wish-Bone, as well as Heinz
The Kraft Heinz Foods Company, formerly the H. J. Heinz Company and commonly known as Heinz (), is an American food processing company headquartered at One PPG Place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The company was founded by Henry J. Heinz in 1869. ...
in the Middle East
The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq.
The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...
.
Variations
In the Southwestern United States
The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural list of regions of the United States, region of the United States that includes Arizona and New Mexico, along with adjacen ...
, there is a variant from New Mexican cuisine called "green chile ranch" which adds green New Mexico chile
New Mexico chile or New Mexican chile (Scientific name: ''Capsicum annuum'' 'New Mexico Group'; , ) is a cultivar group of the chile pepper from the US state of New Mexico, first grown by Puebloan peoples, Pueblo and Hispanos of New Mexico, Hispa ...
pepper as an ingredient. Regional restaurant chains, like Dion's, produce and sell green chile ranch, as do others.
Other variations include avocado
The avocado, alligator pear or avocado pear (''Persea americana'') is an evergreen tree in the laurel family (Lauraceae). It is native to Americas, the Americas and was first domesticated in Mesoamerica more than 5,000 years ago. It was priz ...
, roasted red pepper, and truffle
A truffle is the Sporocarp (fungi), fruiting body of a subterranean ascomycete fungus, one of the species of the genus ''Tuber (fungus), Tuber''. More than one hundred other genera of fungi are classified as truffles including ''Geopora'', ''P ...
.
Trademark lawsuit
One side effect of the adoption of the name "ranch" for Henson's new salad dressing was that it resulted in a federal lawsuit over whether the phrase "ranch style" could be used to describe competing salad dressing products. Since the early 1930s, there had also been an existing brand of pinto bean
The pinto bean () is a variety of Phaseolus vulgaris, common bean (''Phaseolus vulgaris''). In Spanish language, Spanish they are called . It is the most popular bean by crop production in Northern Mexico and the Southwestern United States, South ...
s branded as “Ranch Style Beans”, now marketed by Conagra Brands.
In 1975, Waples-Platter, the Texas-based manufacturer and founder of Ranch Style Beans, sued Kraft Foods and General Foods for trademark infringement for their "ranch style" products, even though Waples-Platter had declined to enter the salad dressing market itself over concerns about rapid spoilage.
The case was tried in 1976 before federal judge Eldon Brooks Mahon in Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Tarrant County, Texas, Tarrant County, covering nearly into Denton County, Texas, Denton, Johnson County, Texas, Johnson, Parker County, Texas, Parker, and Wise County, Te ...
. Mahon ruled in favor of Waples-Platter in a lengthy opinion, which described the various "ranch style" and "ranch" products then available in the 1970s in the United States, of which many had been created to compete against Hidden Valley Ranch. Mahon's opinion cites evidence indicating lawyers had compelled Henson himself to sit for a deposition during the discovery
Discovery may refer to:
* Discovery (observation), observing or finding something unknown
* Discovery (fiction), a character's learning something unknown
* Discovery (law), a process in courts of law relating to evidence
Discovery, The Discovery ...
process to testify about the history of Hidden Valley Ranch.
Waples-Platter Companies v. Gen. Foods Corp.
', 439 F.Supp. 551 (N.D. Tex. 1977).
Mahon specifically noted that Hidden Valley Ranch and Waples-Platter had no dispute with each other, though he also said Hidden Valley Ranch was simultaneously suing General Foods in a separate federal case in California. The only issue before the Texas federal district court was that Waples-Platter was disputing the right of other American food manufacturers to compete against Hidden Valley Ranch by using the label "ranch style".
See also
* List of dips
References
External links
Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing history
{{Condiments
American inventions
Dips (food)
Salad dressings
Food and drink introduced in the 1950s
Mayonnaise
Californian cuisine
American condiments
Creamy sauces