Pro Chefs Blind Taste Test Every Ranch Dressing

[Narrator] We've gathered three professional chefs

to blind taste test every bottle of ranch

we could get our hands on

to see which ones meet their standards.

[upbeat orchestra music]

Hidden Valley Ranch.

The texture of this is quite lovely, actually.

All the ingredients are incorporated.

It has a nice, creamy texture to it.

The way it jiggles could be from stabilizers.

I don't think we're just seeing an emulsification here.

For a great ranch dressing,

I would like it to be creamy.

A certain silkiness to the dressing,

but not be gloppy,

not just sit there.

Because it is so thick and rich,

I am looking for acidity and black pepper kick.

An umami element from onion powder and garlic powder.

The buttermilk gives it that tang

that I think is extremely necessary and recognizable.

Well, there are three main herbs that you're going to see

in almost every single ranch dressing,

which is gonna be chives, dill, and parsley.

Herbs add a secondary note

that prevents it from being overwhelming.

That is a recognizable profile, obviously.

It's got that tang,

but it's not the tang I'm expecting from buttermilk.

It doesn't have the kind of lactic creaminess.

There is a sort of pungency.

It's given way to gentle and mellow acidity,

which is actually quite lovely.

It coats the ingredients well.

If you didn't tell me anything,

I would actually think this is

a very mild blue cheese dressing.

It has good herbaceous front to it.

Onion and garlic come through.

There's definitely a sheen,

which tells me that the first ingredient may be oil.

This reminds me of Hidden Valley.

Is it Hidden Valley?

Hidden Valley!

It's the classic.

Hidden Valley pretty much started it all.

It was originally started by a guy named Steve Henson.

Who was a plumber.

And then he sort of retired early,

and then he moved to California and bought a ranch,

and he called it The Hidden Valley.

The dressing, something that he served his guests.

It was essentially a dry mix that he would reconstitute.

It was so popular,

they started selling packets by mail order.

And the demand was so much

that he ended up making this his main business.

I would imagine that this is not

the original Hidden Valley recipe.

Hidden Valley isn't Hidden Valley anymore.

Like a lot of the companies out there,

they're owned by Clorox.

You wanna figure out how to put something

that's not shelf stable in a shelf-stable bottle,

Clorox is probably the perfect company to figure it out.

This is kind of a benchmark

of what is expected for ranch dressing.

[cap pops] [ranch squelching]

[Narrator] Kraft Classic Ranch.

Its color is significantly different.

Has a yellow tint to it.

It looks like Jell-O.

That's disconcerting.

It's more of a dip consistency,

a little more mayonnaise than the other one.

There's buttermilk, maybe a dry dairy component in there.

It's very acid-forward.

That hits towards the back of your tongue.

But again, I'm not getting the herb finish here.

I can see a lot of flecks of herbs,

but it seems like more a visual reminder

that there are herbs rather than a flavor.

For a bottled ranch dressing,

you'll typically find dried herbs

just because it's shelf stable.

Fresh herbs have a lot of moisture,

and moisture equals spoilage.

So it's very likely that this dressing

has maybe a starch component to it

to kinda give it more body.

And in a dressing like this,

which feels really thick,

there's a lot of fat and probably xanthan gum

or any other thickener or emulsifier.

Is this Kraft?

Kraft.

Ooh. Oh, Kraft.

It says, Now more rich.

One of my notes was it was very acidic.

The second ingredient is vinegar.

It has potassium sorbate.

Potassium sorbate is a salt that's made from sorbic acid.

That's part of why it tastes so acidic.

This particular dressing uses both egg yolks

and modified food starch.

Those are both ingredients that we'll use

to stabilize dressing.

Too thick for me.

This does taste like a liquid form

of the coating on Cool Ranch Doritos.

[seal rips] [ranch squelching]

[Narrator] Newman's Own Ranch.

It has a completely different viscosity to it.

Definitely much thinner.

It sloshes a little bit more,

and I feel this could function well

as both a dressing and as a dip or throwing it on pizza.

I love pizza [chuckles] with ranch.

Not a lot goin' on there.

The onion and garlic don't really come through.

It's very bitter,

which I attribute to, like, a rancid oil.

When I'm thinking about ranch,

I'm thinking about an herbaceous kick

coming in against an umami onion bottom

and meeting in the cream.

It's missing.

Extremely pronounced vinegar profile.

It feels like it's coming from, like,

a chemical sort of acid.

We see on some ingredient labels ascorbic acid

or, like, phosphoric acid.

Sometimes, in bottled dressings

to meet the mandated levels of acidity and pH levels,

manufacturers have to include multiple acids.

But the main component in a ranch

to mellow out the acidity will be fat.

It finishes clean on the palate,

which might tell me that it doesn't have as much fat.

For a ranch, this is kind of flat.

Less than 2% of buttermilk.

[Jacob] Would've liked more of a dairy profile.

There's a lot of acid in this.

There's distilled vinegar.

There's citric acid,

which is so strong a chemical

that when I used to work in restaurants,

we would use it to, like, clean stoves.

[Narrator] Trader Joe's Buttermilk Ranch.

I like the color of it.

Probably the brightest green that I've seen thus far.

It's thin enough to be a dressing.

It's definitely thinner.

To me, this doesn't have the stabilizers.

Maybe this is a refrigerated brand.

Ooh.

Really nice herbaceousness.

I can really taste the herbs in this.

Most garlicky.

A nice umami background with the onion.

There's also a secondary note of acidity,

but with some kind of floral interplay,

almost like it's lemon and not just straight vinegar

or another chemical.

There is some of that lactic sort of acidity

that you would get from dairy like buttermilk.

Far as flavor, this is perfect.

This is the runniest.

This might be more natural.

Most dressings are incompatible by nature.

They're usually a suspension of something that is a liquid,

like let's say water or milk or buttermilk,

with a fat like typically oil in a dressing.

The trick lies in mixing them together

in a way that they like each other

and remain friends forever.

Over time, emulsifications do break

unless they're held together with some stabilizer.

The emulsifier comes in and provides the right tools

for these two seemingly incompatible elements

to live together.

I think this is Trader Joe's.

Feels too good to be Trader Joe's.

Trader Joe's Ranch.

This is the first of the ones that we've tasted

that is a refrigerated dressing.

It's retained so much of that fresh tang.

And that's coming from the sour cream.

[Shilpa] There's sour cream, there's buttermilk.

Shallots, chive.

And they use mustard flour,

so that's one of their natural emulsifiers.

It's pretty good.

[cap clacks] [ranch squelching]

[Narrator] Hellmann's Classics Ranch.

This one is shiny and barely moves.

It almost looks like plastic to me.

We're back in shelf-stable ranch world.

Definitely more of a dip consistency to me.

There's not a lot of herbage, to be honest,

nor any flecks of black pepper that are super visible.

It has a milkiness to it.

Maybe a higher fat content.

It feels almost waxy,

and it's stuck to my upper palate.

Not getting a whole lot of umami

from the onion and garlic.

Doesn't have that herbaceous front to it.

I don't like it.

Oh my God.

Oh, Hellmann's. [chuckles]

Wait, what?

That's a huge bottle.

Who makes that much ranch?

It's giving drunk on my couch,

drinking ranch from the bottle.

I am amazed that the first ingredient is water.

In order to not have it be watery,

they have to use thickeners.

Here they're using xanthan gum

and the propylene glycol alginate made from algae,

so it's natural.

There's modified corn starch in this,

which thickens in a different way to xanthan gum.

In a way, it's almost pudding-like.

Modified corn starch is a big component of pudding mix.

It's missing a lot of the depth,

but it's very pleasant.

It looks like ranch-flavored vodka.

[Narrator] Stonewall Kitchen Ranch.

Big chunks of herbs in here,

which I like to see.

[Jacob] This ranch is definitely the chunkiest.

This one is deeply yellow, almost green.

It's more of a cheesiness.

Definitely has a buttery flavor to it.

[Shilpa] And it's very savory.

And there may be a higher sugar content.

It's really lacking some of that refreshing quality

that I'm looking for in a ranch dressing.

There's something weird about this one, though.

Oh, Stonewall Kitchen.

I think that the weird flavor

is coming from the tocopherols.

It's a mix of vitamin Es.

It's a natural antioxidant.

It's a preservative, and they don't last as long

as the highly used commercial ones.

It's a way not to have a big,

long chemical name on the back.

You can replace it with something

that sounds like a vitamin.

The third ingredient is salted egg,

which really goes to explain the deeper color.

I wouldn't even call it ranch.

It's not a true representation

of what a ranch dressing should be.

And this strays the farthest for me.

[Narrator] Good & Gather Organic Ranch.

This is very white.

[Charlie] Looks like they forgot the herbs completely.

Looks very frothy,

almost like a meringue.

It really does look just like yogurt.

This one is very sweet.

Someone took everything fun out of ranch

except for the tang.

The oil tastes like it might have some age to it.

It may have slightly oxidized.

The consistency is actually pretty good.

It's well emulsified.

The vinegar is just lingering.

Good & Gather.

This is a Target brand.

Target, you forgot all the herbs.

There's even pictures of herbs on the front.

We've got pictures of dill.

Where is it?

Not a single one of it made it into this dressing.

Sugar is the fourth ingredient on this label.

The intention is for that to help balance it out,

but it just comes through as too sharp

and too sweet at the same time.

That's a no for me.

[Narrator] Great Value Ranch.

Well, this one has a really nice jiggle to it.

A little bit more speckle in this ranch.

Very tiny, almost like herb dust.

I am pleasantly really surprised by this one.

This has a very traditional ranch milkiness.

It's a little slippery.

When they've got a little more oil in them,

they can taste slippery on the tongue.

Like, washes your tongue in this savory note.

Like, I can really taste the lactic acidity of buttermilk,

for instance, or sour cream, maybe.

It's got nice herb flavors,

good onion and garlic.

I love this one.

This is a good everyday ranch, I think.

Great Value.

You know, I've noticed there's a trend

in our taste test where the Great Value brand

really does come through.

For the price compared to some

of the other ranches that we saw,

you have ingredients that might be a little more costly.

Like, let's say, egg.

Oh, sugar is the third ingredient,

but it feels way more balanced

than in the Good & Gather one.

So because this has sodium benzoate in it,

you will never see, like, lemon juice in this,

because it can react with ascorbic acid

in a bottle and heat or with sunlight and create benzene,

which is commonly found in gasoline.

[seal rips] [ranch squelching]

[Narrator] Ken's Ranch.

There seem to be fine granules

or something in here besides herbs.

So this one has a pretty steady texture.

Pretty good flavor.

This is kinda nice.

There's a pleasing acidity.

It feels like it's really awakening the palate.

It has a really nice zing, tang to it.

You have that kind of milky profile.

It coats my mouth really nicely.

I really like the consistency of this one.

I can also see what I think are probably flecks of garlic,

however, it doesn't come through very strong.

For a commercial ranch dressing,

this is high up there for me.

Is it Ken's?

Ken's.

Ken's.

Yeah, this is the one.

It is Ken's.

This dressing, in my opinion,

checks all the boxes.

You have actual buttermilk in this one.

As far as a shelf-stable dressing,

this is, yeah, definitely one of my favorites.

[Narrator] Olive Garden Parmesan Ranch.

This one is way too shiny for me.

Just a lot of oil in there.

Jiggles like Jell-O.

I see a lot of herbage,

and I also see these yellow granules.

The oil to me tastes extremely oxidized.

Very acidic.

Vinegar content is high.

I think it's being balanced out with a lotta sugar.

I'm not getting any herb or onion.

Not a really good buttermilk flavor.

The consistency is good.

They got that right.

Olive Garden Italian Kitchen.

I thought they only had their Italian dressing.

Oh, Parmesan!

I didn't taste the Parmesan at all.

I feel like they really put the Parmesan in there

just to qualify it as vaguely Italian.

That does give it a little bit more body, probably.

It could really have worked well,

but I think it would need a lot more

and be a good-quality, strong parm.

If this is what your dressing tastes like,

how do you expect people to come to the restaurant?

[Narrator] Whole Foods 365 Organic Classic Ranch.

This looks not as thick,

maybe a little fresher.

Kind of a perfect consistency for me.

This is what I want.

I wanna be able to dress my salad.

I want it to coat something without feeling

like I'm sticking my celery in mayonnaise.

It's quite refreshing.

There is a nice amount of acidity.

It's quite balanced.

[Charlie] Not maybe quite as much tang,

but a really nice creaminess.

And then it finishes really nicely with the herbs.

I think there's dried oregano in this one.

It almost takes me to Pizza World.

This is definitely on the higher end.

Whole Foods?

365, Whole Foods.

So this is refrigerated.

So when you go from shelf-stable to refrigerated,

they go away from the oily flavor and more to the creamy.

It's a lot fresher.

You can tell right away.

Quite a lovely dressing,

and with a sort of Goldilocks texture

that can be both a dip and a dressing.

[Narrator] Chosen Foods Classic Ranch.

Well, this one is pretty thin.

Certainly more in the dressing rather than dip category.

It almost looks like a light Caesar dressing.

Heavy on the vinegar.

It's got a tang to it.

I wouldn't say it's a milky tang.

[Jacob] You got a little sweetness

to try to balance it out.

The predominant flavor in this dressing is dill,

and I kinda like that.

Maybe a lower fat.

Could be avocado oil.

Chosen Foods Classic Ranch.

They make avocado oil-based products.

Oh, 100% avocado oil.

The second ingredient is pear juice,

and that's used as a sweetener.

There's a pectin in there that kinda helps thicken up,

but it really strays from what ranch should taste like.

[Narrator] Marie's Creamy Ranch.

Oh, that is thick and clingy.

Looks a little clumpy.

What are these clots?

Oh my goodness.

Maybe the least smooth.

And I think it's dehydrated onion pieces

that have reconstituted in the dressing

to now take on this sort of fleshy quality.

The vinegar is balanced.

Definitely get a lotta garlic in here.

The predominant flavor is allium

and black pepper rather than herbs.

Not as rich and not as complex.

Is this Marie's.

Maria's.

[laughs] Oh, okay.

It's not quite Maria's, but it's Marie's.

Keep refrigerated.

Buttermilk is number two.

You have sour cream there and egg yolks, back to back.

Oh, dried green onion.

I think that's what it is.

I think the oil kinda comes through

a little bit more than I'd like,

but overall this is more unique and a pretty good contender.

[Narrator] Market Pantry Ranch.

This one is a weird consistency.

Way more of a sheen.

It's very thin.

It clings, but in a very thin layer.

I could do this all night long.

It's like my Japanese rock garden.

Not unpleasant, actually.

Distinct tang, distinct onion and garlic.

No herb flavor.

It's a little thin for me,

and it's a little sweet.

I am not thrilled with this dressing.

Yeah.

Market Pantry is Target.

Contains less than 1% of natural flavors.

They're still artificial flavors,

but derived from real ingredients.

It could definitely be those modified food starches

that are causing this and the lack of other thickeners.

You get what you pay for.

[Narrator] Great Value Buttermilk Ranch.

There is some nice coating action there.

Whoa, do you see that?

It is so thick it like builds up on the back of this spoon.

Very acidic, like vinegar.

I think it's lacking on the dairy.

Not getting any of the herbs.

And also not really any umami from onion and garlic.

The oil is kinda lingering on the palate.

Sort of rough around the edges.

Great Value.

Buttermilk ranch.

What else should it be?

So they literally have on the shelf next to each other

a ranch which is supposed to be a buttermilk ranch,

and then right next to it they put a buttermilk ranch.

Weird that they would call it buttermilk ranch,

because when you look at the ingredient label,

contains 2% or less of buttermilk.

Well, keep it simple, Walmart.

The other one was better.

[Narrator] Ken's Buttermilk Ranch.

So this is a pretty stiff look

and consistency on this one.

My goodness.

You can almost turn this one upside down.

Surprisingly good flavor.

It feels like you made ranch dressing from the packet,

but then you use only half the liquid.

Has a pretty light flavor.

The tang is not super forward.

The spices don't come through.

Quite a visible amount of herbs,

but it didn't really translate into flavor.

This is a fine ranch. It's fine.

Ken's Peppercorn?

Oh, it's not Ken's.

It's got way too much stuff in it.

Oh my God.

This is Ken's Buttermilk Ranch.

I don't get more buttermilk.

I liked the original version better.

Ken's Classic Ranch definitely came in

as the winner versus this one.

[Narrator] Brianna's Home Style Classic Buttermilk Ranch.

It has an unnatural color.

It's extremely shiny.

This one's got nice herbs.

It's also very thin.

Yeah, that's nasty.

This one is not very good.

This is like the most oil content.

I honestly would not call it a ranch.

It feels highly processed to me.

There's a very strong off flavor.

It has this rancid overtone.

It punches you in the throat.

Tocopherols, so that's what's in there.

It's vitamin Es.

It's a natural preservative.

Visually promising, but taste-wise,

it's really harsh.

Brianna's Home Style Classic Buttermilk Ranch dressing.

Okay, the trend that I'm reporting about

is that any ranch dressing labeled buttermilk ranch dressing

isn't worth their time.

Yeah, it's really not good.

This is presented and packaged

to be a more premium product,

but I think really, really falls short in my opinion.

[Narrator] Hidden Valley Buttermilk Ranch.

This looks like mostly sour cream.

I'm docking some points here.

Very thick.

I don't like the emulsification on this one.

[Shilpa] Sort of sits on your tongue a bit heavy,

and it feels a bit oily.

You get the vinegar, and then you get the garlic.

You're not really getting any other

sort of roundness in the flavors.

Almost no herbaceousness.

[Shilpa] There is also, again, a bitterness in this

that is quite unexpected.

Middle of the road, I would say.

This is very meh.

Guys, I've had it.

Any ranch that says Buttermilk Ranch, abandon, run away.

I would go with the classic.

[Narrator] Ken's Lite Ranch.

This ranch has a fresh look to it.

A little more body to it, almost a bounce.

This looks suspiciously like pudding.

Kinda sharp.

Literally, it just rinses right off your tongue.

It isn't super fatty.

It needs more of that fat to really soften the vinegar.

You can make a ranch lighter

by removing a lot of the oil

and replacing it with water and stabilizers.

It feels like buttermilk, mayonnaise, onion.

That's it.

Is it Ken's Low Fat?

Low-Fat Kraft.

Lite Ranch by Ken.

50% less fat,

42% fewer calories.

So when you cut the fat back,

you have to add body in some other form.

They've used potato flour, xanthan gum,

carrageenan, mustard flour,

modified cornstarch, maltodextrin.

Maltodextrin is just a polysaccharide.

It's a really long sugar,

and it's great for bulking recipes, or people. [chuckles]

Like if you're a bodybuilder

and you wanna take weight gainer,

it's literally like 80% maltodextrin.

It has really great qualities of offering a little bit

of sweetness and a little bit of volume

without adding flavor.

[Narrator] Primal Kitchen Dairy-Free Ranch

with Avocado Oil.

This is the darkest that we've had today.

So many herbs.

It has zero cling.

This is like a vinaigrette.

What is this? [chuckles]

Ooh.

Very, very tart.

It's really acidic.

[Shilpa] And it has a kind of slickness on your tongue.

Like a greasy finish.

A lotta zing,

a lot of herbs,

a little umami,

but in all the wrong places.

I hate this dressing.

It doesn't resemble ranch dressing.

Let's see how much fat you save by choking this down.

Primal Kitchen.

And there we go.

Pretty high on the list is citric acid.

Often gives you that sharper acidity.

Most interestingly, it says no dairy.

It shouldn't be called ranch if it doesn't have any dairy.

It is an herb dressing,

and that's that.

[Narrator] Market Pantry Light Ranch.

This has got body for days.

Low fat, fo sho.

This is not bad.

A nice balance of, like, acid, salt.

But it just finishes sweet.

No umami notes really to speak of.

The flavor is flat for me.

There is a faint amount of dill,

but very, very mild.

This would be fine on chicken wings,

but by itself just on vegetables,

this would not be a go-to for me.

Market Pantry Light Ranch.

Maltodextrin is number four,

which is really high up.

I am not a fan of this dressing.

[Narrator] Hidden Valley Ranch Light.

Do you see how shiny that is?

Really emulsified.

Certainly, low fat.

It seems like it's seasoned quite well.

Oh my God, it tastes like coconut and cough syrup.

It doesn't taste like it has a high fat content.

It's very thin, very watery.

Less fat generally equates to less flavor

because fat is a flavor carrier.

There's less cling on the palate in the low-fat dressing,

so you don't taste the dressing as long.

Not super forward on the herbaceous notes.

There's very little seasoning here.

Doesn't remind me of ranch.

This, to me, tastes like a low-fat mayonnaise.

Aah.

Hidden Valley Light Ranch.

This one says 60% less fat,

so they become increasingly lower fat.

That's interesting.

So they're replacing the fat in the oils with buttermilk.

Obviously, buttermilk is more expensive than water.

I would eat a tablespoon less of the regular

than choose a light version of it.

I'd probably go with this out of all the light ranches,

but I wouldn't go with light ranch.

[Narrator] Now let's see which bottles of ranch

our chefs liked the most and the least.

By far, my favorite dressing today

was the Whole Foods ranch.

It's a refrigerated ranch.

[Jacob] It was really fresh, bright.

Really nice umami,

a great creaminess,

a perfect consistency.

My favorite ranch dressing today

was undoubtedly the Trader Joe's.

It was well-balanced.

It had a lot of flavor from the herbs.

It was on par with or better than a homemade version.

I thought the best balance of flavors

in the shelf-stable dressings was the Ken's original.

It had a very nice balance of umami, creaminess, and tang.

My least favorite was Stonewall's.

It had a weird like chicken-stock sort of quality to it.

Both dressings that we tasted today

that had tocopherols in them,

the flavor of those, I believe,

was coming through.

The Brianna's, I had to spit it out.

I wouldn't reach for any of the ones

that have a light or a buttermilk ranch.

It's better to stick with the classics.

Thank you to Steve Henson,

former plumber, for gifting us ranch dressing.

Yeah, it's a great condiment to kinda brighten food up.

I'll eat ranch again.

My ranch that I make.

[bright music]

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