Easy, Healthy, Homemade Ranch Dip
One of the easiest ways to get more vegetables into your family’s diet is to serve them with some yummy ranch dip! Adding healthy fats to your veggies not only makes them tastier, but healthy fats are also important for the growth of your children and the health of your whole family!
But unfortunately, many of the ranch dressings available at the grocery store are not healthy. They often have bad fats like soybean oil or canola oil. If you’d like to learn more about which fats are good for your family, please read my article: Which healthy fats to feed to your family
Nourishing Tweens is a participant in several affiliate programs, advertising programs that provides a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com and other websites. I only recommend things that I truly like and would use myself. If you click through my links and make a purchase, there is no additional charge to you.
You can learn how to make your own ranch dip or dressing
Luckily, making your own ranch dip or dressing is easy and so much healthier for your family! I first realized this when I tried the recipe on the Nutritional Weight and Wellness website. Their recipe is good, but I tweaked it a bit for my family’s tastes and I think you will love the results!
My ranch dip recipe is low carb and keto-friendly. There is no sugar in my ranch dressing! It’s also full of healthy fats.
And if you are making ranch dip or dressing, you are going to need some fresh veggies! The best place to buy fresh vegetables is the farmer’s market. But it’s not always convenient to wait until your town’s farmer’s market day (ours is Saturday) or maybe your town doesn’t even have a farmer’s market! Or…maybe you would rather stay in your pajamas on Saturday morning and you’d like the market to come to you.
What is a farm box?
Luckily, the farmer’s market can come to you in the form of a farm CSA box. What is a farm CSA box? CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. It simply means that local farms are able to make some money by directly selling their produce to you, the customer. Your family receives a subscription box of local, usually organic, produce.
Our family has been receiving farm boxes from Farm Fresh to You for years. Farm Fresh to You is located in Capay, California, which is just north of the San Francisco Bay Area. It is an all-organic family farm that has been in operation since 1976. You can choose the size and frequency of your box. Our family receives bi-weekly boxes of fresh, organic produce. Every other Tuesday morning there is a box of produce on my doorstep!
Farm Fresh to You promo code
Boxes start at $25 and you can cancel at any time. If you live in California and would like to try Farm Fresh to You, you can use my promo code to get $15 off your first box! Simply go to the Farm Fresh to You website and sign up with the code KARE2218. It’s awesome because you can customize your box on their easy to use website. You can let them choose what they send if you want, or you can enter preferences (for example, I’ve asked for no beets), or you can go into the website or app and specifically choose what you want!
How to make quick and easy ranch dip for veggies
This recipe is so simple! It is important to get yourself some avocado-oil mayonnaise. Your kids need healthy fat to grow, and you yourself need healthy fat to maintain brain health. Avocados are so good for you!
My favorite avocado oil mayonnaise is made by Sir Kensington’s. There are also healthy versions made by Primal Kitchen and Chosen Foods. Any of these brands are a good choice. If you go with a different brand, make sure that avocado oil is the only oil in the list of ingredients. Kraft makes an “avocado oil” mayonnaise that has canola and soybean oil in it! Don’t fall for that!
Then add sour cream. Get organic, full-fat sour cream. Organic is more expensive than regular, but the quality of the fat is better for your health. If you can find some that says “grass-fed” or “pasture-raised”, that’s even better – because you want your food to come from animals that ate what nature intended them to eat. To learn more about this, read my article about healthy fats.
Stir in some buttermilk. Add a half cup like it says in my recipe to make a nice, thick dip for dipping veggies into. If you would rather make salad dressing to pour over your salad, follow the exact same recipe but add another 1/4-1/2 cup buttermilk to thin it out.
Then add dried herbs and fresh garlic! I added lots of garlic because I love garlic. If your family has a more sensitive palate, then either decrease the garlic, switch to dried garlic (about 1 tsp.) or just leave it out.
Fresh herbs would also be delicious in this recipe. I was going for quick and easy, so I didn’t want to tell you to spend time washing and chopping herbs. But if you have the time, go for it! If you want to substitute in fresh herbs, just put in about a tablespoon of chopped herbs for each teaspoon of herbs my recipe calls for. There are 3 teaspoons in a tablespoon.
Enjoy!!! If you like this recipe, please pin and share!
Also check out my other salad dressing recipe, or try these salad recipes:
Strawberry Salad with Feta and Mint
Easy, Healthy Ranch Dip & Dressing
Ingredients
- 1 cup mayonaisse (made with avocado oil)
- 1 cup sour cream regular
- 1/2 cup buttermilk (add more if you want a dressing rather than dip)
- 4 tsp. dried chives
- 1 Tbsp. dried parsley
- 4 tsp. dried dill
- 2 tsp. dried oregano
- 2 tsp. celery seed
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 2 cloves minced garlic
Instructions
- Mix it all together! Serve with raw veggies.
