Clearly, this insidious proliferation of Ranch dressing can be traced back to a small, but krafty, group of folks hidden in a valley…somewhere.
A good salad should have a balsamic vinaigrette.
I enjoy Ranch, and Italian (proper Italian without tomato), blue cheese, and others.
Italian is the best on peaches and cottage cheese.
Blue cheese on salads, or wings, or god help me, rare steak.
Ranch on crudites, salads, or burgers.
Ranch mixed with honey mustard on chicken.
lately KellyM has been making a pomegranate viniagrette that is quite nice on a green salad with feta.
Sorry for the hijack, but I’m wondering how French dressing same to have that name, seeing as over the course of ten years in France I never saw it even once.
In France, if you have a salad, it comes with a light coating of vinagrette. Period.
Anyway, I won’t join in the Ranch-bashing; it’s certainly not my fave commercial dressing (that would be one, the only Catalina), but I don’t hate it. Unless it’s servied with wings. That’s just wrong.
A raspberry vinaigrette or a balsamic vinaigrette with a hint of maple syrup. I’d even go so far as to say a vidalia onion dressing. But anything before ranch.
Of course all of you have yet to mention The One True and Proper use for ranch dressing.
As a dip for pizza!
What ?
No, you are not. The reason nobody has it anymore is because my husband has purchased all of it and is hording it (in case the world comes to an end or something-I swear we have six unopened bottles of it in the pantry) because that is the only salad dressing he will eat. Let me know if you want to stop by and pick some up. 
Oh, and what, exactly, IS the problem with restaurants - I can’t get my red wine vinegar and oil anymore!
Actually, you get that quite a lot in the UK as well. Sundried tomato, olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing. Its actually very nice, and Sainsburys give you little sachets of it with their pre-packaged Italian Salads.
I always pass up Ranch dressing in favor of…
Ranch With Bacon!
Substitute “cheese sticks” for “pizza” and I’m there. Bleu cheese is the only salad dressing for me, with the possible exception of raspberry vinaigrette on a spinach and cheezy salad.
Am I the only one who throws half Ranch/half Blue Cheese dressing on their salads? Both dressings are pretty good separtly, but thrown together -
What indeed!
As anyone who grew up with a Monical’s Pizza place can attest - you must use Monical’s french dressing for pizza dip.
And my vote for awesome salad dressing is for Poppyseed… mmmm.
Blech. As soon as I’m done with this post, I’ll start laying plans for the coup d’etat.
I’ll second the comments about the crappiness of lite italian dressing. Give me the real stuff or a good vinaigrette.
Also, while I’m not a french dressing fan, I have to say that Ken’s French Dressing is delicious. Try it*.
*Disclaimer: I own 18.5% of the company, and each time you buy a bottle I make a quarter. Hah! Just kidding.
I’m not crazy about ranch either. We used to carry a sundried tomato vinagrette dressing. I didn’t care for it. My choice is french. The dark red kind not the orange stuff. Sometimes people don’t speak up. If they mumble when they give me their order, ranch and french can sound alike. So can rice and fries. So if you didn’t want ranch I would have politely asked to server to bring me something else. Although I have been to restaurants that only carry ranch and italian. That is frustrating. Give the people more than 2 choices for crying out loud.
No.
But make it yourself rather than trying to find it somewhere – 2 parts mayo to 1 part BBQ sauce (ketchup as a poor 2nd choice) with green relish added to taste (dill or sweet as you prefer);added herbs and spices optional – I like a little crushed fresh garlic and a touch of paprika, though they may not be to others’ taste. Adding a touch of food coloring to make it something other than the kink of putrid beige that results is simply appearance, but cool.
Vary the proportions to about even, substitute bacon bits for the relish, add paprika as mandatory (for both flavor and color), and a drop of tabasco sauce, and you have a Russian dressing better than anything available commercially.
There are several other dressings quite easy to make – but those two are ones I’ve worked with very successfully in the past.
What irks me is the total absence of Roquefort dressing on the market. I don’t care for the generic bleu cheese dressings, but I do like Roquefort – on the rare occasions I’ve ever found it.
There is a local Italian eatery here that makes their own dressing. It hurts.
Literally hurts.
You take a bite and it’s as if your jaw isn’t going to explode from the sharp, searing, painful tang of this delicious masochism.
It will make your ears ring, your lips pucker, and your eyes water.
It is as addictive a substance as I have ever encountered.
They also put about two pounds of cheese on their salads, so the delight is complete.
Ooh, now I need a salad.
You can cheat 1000 Island by simply mixing together some tartar sauce and ketchup. I did it when I worked in the restaurant business and we ran out of the 1000 Island. No one ever complained or seemed to notice.
I couldn’t agree more. Bleu cheese is nothing short of absolutely disgusting on salads. I used to like it when I was 9, then I outgrew that, along with ketchup. Frankly, I’d take ranch on a salad before bleu cheese.
But the best salad dressing is clearly poppy seed dressing. So delicious. After that, it should be a vinaigrette.
Bleu cheese belongs on hot wings and nothing else.
Outgrow bleu cheese? You have that backwards, friend. Bleu cheese is something that you grow into, not out of. It’s the creamy ambrosia of the gods.
Ken’s Sundried Tomato dressing is wonderful, and I love a good balsamic vinagrette. But apparently I am the last person on earth who still likes Green Goddess, because I never, ever see it served anywhere.
Oh, and Ranch is for kids.
I disagree. It used to be the only thing I’d put on my salads when I was little, but now I’ve realized what a pathetic dressing it is. It’s basically ranch attempting to be sophisticated by crumbling a fancy cheese in it so people can feel all hoity-toity when ordering it.
It’s all just mayonnaise, people!