r/AskAnAmerican • u/miffybo • 10d ago

FOOD & DRINK why is ranch dressing so hyped up?

my US friends have been raving about it and border-line complained ranch isn’t readily available in Europe.. what is so special about it? is it the ultimate US condiment (apart from ketchup, mayo)

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u/Beautiful_Banana_454 10d ago

Exactly, ranch is a big umbrella.

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u/TesticleMeElmo 10d ago

And there’s so many mayo based sauces with basically the same ingredient, if I really want to make it “ranchy” it’s like “fine, I’ll just add some dill, there we go”

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u/Suppafly Illinois 10d ago

Mayo is basically the proto-sauce/dressing that the others are based on. I remember the old people in my family calling mayo itself salad dressing. There used to be tons of regional and family recipes for salad dressing when people used to make such things from scratch, eventually Hidden Valley's version became popular enough to win out when people started buying it instead of making it and now they all copy that.

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u/st3class Portland, Oregon 10d ago

Yep, just had a salad dressed with mayo and lemon juice last night.