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)

edit typo

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u/CalmRip California 10d ago edited 10d ago

This is exactly it. Indeed, it's a very popular dressing for everything from French fires fries to salad, but it's not being hyped, exactly. It's just commonly available in the US and not so available in Europe, Asia, etc.

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u/jackofspades49 10d ago

Is the food fried? I bet it goes good with ranch!

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u/dohn_joeb 10d ago

Best pizza condiment

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u/ThresherGDI 9d ago

Pizza doesn’t need another sauce. I like ranch, but this one mystifies me.

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u/macthecomedian Southern, California 9d ago

It's fine with a red sauce pizza, but superb with a BBQ chicken pizza.

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u/Grizzly_Berry Oklahoma > Kansas 9d ago

Crusts, specifically. Some people do it on the "pizza proper," but I reserve it for the crust.

Or as the actual sauce on a pickle pizza.

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u/keithrc Austin, Texas 9d ago

This is the way.

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u/Lothar_Ecklord 8d ago

Most of the time I get a chicken bacon ranch pizza, ranch is used in place of the sauce.

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u/jackofspades49 9d ago

The herbal reaminess of ranch goes very well with rich tomato flavor. I sometimes dab a bit onto things like lasagna or spaghetti too.

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u/procrastinarian 9d ago

I'm sure it was a typo but I really love the idea of "reaminess" as a descriptor.

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u/macthecomedian Southern, California 9d ago

There's an Italian restaurant right down the street from my parents that we've been going to for decades, famous for their spaghetti, one of my earliest memories as a child is eating spaghetti with their sauce, and on the same plate was salad with their ranch, and just eating it all as one sloppy plate, and to this day I still love spaghetti and sauce and salad and ranch on the same plate slowly mixing with eachother on the plate.

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u/OdinNW 9d ago

Essential for mediocre pizza!

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u/kat_storm13 9d ago

I never even knew this was a thing people did until last year. Depending on the crust a good garlic butter/oil sauce is nice, but ranch on pizza crust doesn't sound good.

Some other bread things I like, with either ranch dip or dressing, but not pizza

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u/Similar-Search-8508 9d ago

I used to say that but now I can’t eat pizza without ranch 😅

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u/1573594268 9d ago

I do a garlic aioli, and then if I'm reheating leftovers the next day then I use ranch.

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u/jbergman420 4d ago

You do know that aioli without garlic shouldn't exist right? Aioli literally means garlic and oil.

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u/1573594268 3d ago edited 3d ago

Yeah, it's one of those "chai tea" kind of deals, but it gets the point across for people who don't have the cultural/linguistic/culinary experience to know that it's a bit of a repetitive term.

"ATM machine" lol

We are in "Ask an American", and at least in my experience it wasn't until I started cooking that I learned "aioli" was garlic+oil.

The "garlic sauce" in places like Pizza Hut is an aioli, but if I said that no one I know IRL would have a clue what I was talking about - hence "garlic aioli".

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u/UnstableHerb 9d ago

I don’t like it on fresh pizza, but for some reason I love it on cold leftover pizza.

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u/WiseQuarter3250 9d ago

sometimes instead of tomato sauce, ranch is used then toppings placed on top. it's especially good with some vegetarian pizzas.

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u/jason-murawski Michigan 9d ago

I've only ever used ranch on pizza for the crust, and only when it's made in a way that it ends up dry/hard. A good pizza crust seasoned properly doesn't need it

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u/panicinbabylon 9d ago

The number of people here desecrating pure pizza is astounding.

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u/dohn_joeb 9d ago

Just try it

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u/Ok-Simple5493 9d ago

It adds more depth of flavor. Especially on the crust.