Watch how it’s made
Every step in 1:01 — from the ingredients to the finished dish.
Commercial ranch dressing is buttermilk, soybean oil and a long list of stabilisers, and two tablespoons carry around 14 grams of fat with very little protein. The herbs that make it taste like ranch cost almost nothing and are the only part that matters.
Made with Greek yogurt instead, the same two tablespoons carry about 2 grams of fat and 4 grams of protein. This whole recipe is 8 grams of carbohydrate a serving including the vegetables you dip in it.
What ranch actually is
Dill, chives, parsley, garlic, onion and black pepper, with something acidic and something creamy. That is the entire formula, and there is no sugar in the original.
Bottled versions add sugar and often corn syrup, which is worth checking if you buy it. It is rarely a large amount, but it is there.
Dried herbs work better than fresh here
This is the opposite of the usual advice and it is true for ranch specifically. Dried dill and dried chives rehydrate in the yogurt and distribute their flavour through the whole bowl. Fresh herbs stay as green flecks that taste of themselves only when you happen to get one.
Fresh chives snipped over at the end are worth having on top. It is the base that wants dried.
It needs an hour
Made and eaten immediately this tastes like yogurt with herbs in it. Given an hour in the refrigerator the dried herbs soften and release, the garlic mellows, and it tastes like ranch.
Overnight is better still. This is a dip to make the evening before, not ten minutes before people arrive.
Garlic powder, not fresh garlic
Raw garlic in a yogurt base gets sharper and more aggressive as it sits, and by the next day it can dominate everything. Garlic powder stays where you put it.
Onion powder likewise. This is one of the few places where the powdered versions are the right choice rather than a compromise.
Choosing what to dip
Bell pepper strips, cucumber, celery, cherry tomatoes and blanched green beans are all under 5 grams of carbohydrate a cup and hold up to a thick dip.
Carrot sticks are the traditional choice and carry more, around 12 grams a cup, which is still modest. The thing to leave out is crackers, where 10 of them can carry 20 grams on their own and undo the point of the exercise.