Chipotle Ranch Dressing will kick all of your salads and dips way up! The addition of a single smoky chipotle pepper to a batch of ranch dressing (either homemade or store-bought like Hidden Valley Ranch) will transform plain ranch into something magical.
I can’t pinpoint when it happened but all of a sudden, I want to dip everything in ranch dressing. Well, maybe not everything – just dippable things like sweet potato fries and broccoli. And tortilla chips.
And even though I was truly mortified when I first saw my girlfriends dipping pizza in ranch dressing back in college, I realize now they were totally on to something.
It’s not hard to love homemade ranch dressing, especially since it’s low in fat and doesn’t reside in a bottle from the grocery store. It’s even more difficult not to love a kicked-up version of this dressing: spicy chipotle ranch.
Smoky chipotles immersed in cool ranch dressing? Bring it on!!
I love this chipotle dressing almost as much as plain ranch but when the right food calls for it (like honey-lime marinated chicken salad or plain ol’ garden tomatoes), this version certainly delivers.
What is a Chipotle Pepper?
Chipotle peppers are smoked and dried jalapeño peppers. When canned, they are immersed in adobo sauce.
On the spicy heat scale, I’d consider them to be between mild and moderate. If you remove the seeds before cooking with chipotle peppers, you can turn down the heat.
They’re flavor is quite smoky and because of the way they are prepared, they don’t resemble a fresh jalapeño pepper at all in appearance or taste.
The ingredient list for this spicy ranch dressing is a basic one and with the exception of the canned chipotle peppers, you may already have all of the ingredients in your kitchen already.
Here’s what you’ll need (be sure to keep scrolling down to the recipe card for the full ingredient list):
Mayonnaise – Light or full fat
Plain nonfat Greek yogurt
Canned chipotle pepper
Lime juice
Fresh chives
Fresh cilantro
Garlic
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Liquid buttermilk
What to Make with Chipotle Ranch
Ranch dressing is such a versatile ingredient, isn’t it? I mean, you can use it as a regular salad dressing or blend in some avocado and you’ve got creamy avocado ranch!
You can keep it on the thicker side to make dip with it for dipping chip and veggies.
Or, you can thin it out with some liquid, like lime juice, and make a taco pasta salad. And it works amazingly as a dressing for potato salad too!
You can certainly make any of those recipes with this chipotle ranch as well. For a kickin’ salad, chipotle ranch dressing would be great drizzled on top of this Southwestern Chopped Chicken Salad or a Classic Cobb Salad.
Chipotle Ranch Dressing is a fantastic way to boost your salad game. This spicy ranch is super simple to make with ground chipotle peppers mixed into buttermilk ranch dressing. Adding a ground chipotle pepper is also a great way to spice up Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing if you don't have time to make your own ranch dressing.
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Ingredients
UnitsScale
3/4cuplight mayonnaise
3/4cup (about 6 oz) plain nonfat Greek yogurt
1 canned chipotle pepper, roughly chopped
1 tbsp lime juice
1 small bunch of chives
Medium handful of cilantro (about 1/3 cup)
1 clove garlic, roughly chopped
1/2 tsp Kosher salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/4 to 1/2cupliquid buttermilk
Instructions
In a blender or bowl of a food processor, combine all of the ingredients, starting with just 1/4 cup buttermilk. Blend for 10 seconds. Check the consistency and if you’d like it thinner, blend in additional buttermilk, 1 tablespoon at a time until the dressing reaches desired consistency. Use less buttermilk if you’re looking for chipotle ranch dip and more buttermilk for dressing.
Storage: Store dressing in a sealed container or jar in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks.
Yum! I have some leftover chipotle peppers from making chipotle mayo and was wondering what to do with them…this is perfect!!
Love the addition of chipotle peppers! This sounds great!!
ummm, i’m obsessed w/ ranch dressing. this looks perfect.
Could I use parsley instead of cilantro (please!)?