I enjoy making as many things as I can from scratch; it likely comes from my childhood of having nothing but hunters and gardeners around me. The more I know about the foods that go in our bellies, the happier I am. Beyond hunting for our meat, we also forage for mushrooms, rosehips, and pine nuts when they’re in season, and one of these is my secret ingredient for homemade ranch. No, not the ranch dressing that’s semi-quasi-not-really-ranch, but a recipe that will surprise you with how close it tastes to the real thing.
I LOVE ranch, but the MSG loaded in it straight from the store tells you something… it’s likely why the majority of us want to pour it on everything we eat (yum, gimme more of that MSG). It is that MSG flavor that is hard to replicate; it’s also the reason why so many homemade ranch dressing recipes fail. You have to be able to mimic that MSG flavor, and guess what does that… mushrooms.
Mushrooms have glutamic acid, a fancy word for the same type of flavor you’d find in MSG; however, the difference is that the glutamic acid in mushrooms is natural and doesn’t contain the high sodium content that you’d find in MSG.
Note: Many foods contain some level of glutamate (as mentioned above), but certain foods, such as mushrooms, are glutamate-rich and may cause problems if you are sensitive to MSG. The amount of glutamate in mushrooms depends on the type. The Glutamate Association estimates that mushrooms contain about 180 milligrams of free glutamate per 100-gram serving. Shiitake and enokitake mushrooms are richest in glutamate. In comparison, the same serving of milk contains 2 grams of glutamate, and a 100-gram serving of Parmesan cheese contains 1,200 milligrams of glutamate.
Homemade Ranch Dressing Without MSG
Equipment
Ingredients
Main Ingredients
- 4 tbsp Mushrooms Dried
- 1 c Buttermilk Powder
- 1 tsp Dill Dried
- 2 tsp Garlic Powder
- 2 tsp Garlic Salt
- 4 tsp Onion Flakes Dried
- 2 tbsp Parsley Dried
- 1/2 tsp Pepper Fresh Ground
- 4 tsp Salt Or to Taste
- 1 tsp Sugar
Add After Blending
- 2 tsp Parsley Dried
- 1 tsp Dill Dried
Instructions
- Blend all of the main ingredients in a food processor. You want to blend the ingredients together until they become a fine powder.
- Add in the extra parsley and dill, and then give the processor a few quick blends. This part is just to give the ranch powder a little color, like you’d expect to see with store bought ranch dressings.
- Funnel the powder into a mason jar and store in your freezer.
- To make vegetable dip with the ranch powder, mix 2 tablespoons of dry mix with 1 cup of sour cream. When you first taste it, it’ll likely not taste like you expect. The longer you let it set, the more time the flavors have to meld together. So, try to give it at least an hour to sit in the refrigerator before dipping your veggies in the ranch.
- To make salad dressing ranch with the powder, mix together 3 tablespoons of dry mix with 1 cup of mayonnaise and ½ cup buttermilk (regular buttermilk, not the dried powder). Again, the longer you let the dressing sit, the better the flavor will be – an hour in the fridge will be just fine. Better yet, double this batch so that you don’t have to make it every time you need some ranch for something.
Mushrooms have natural MSG and there is no way to remove it…other foods that have natural MSG you can’t remove are milk and tomatoes. If you get migraines from MSG like I do. .avoid these foods.
Very good point Susan, I did mention that mushrooms do have glutamic acid, but I should probably elaborate more for those that have sensitivities to MSG. I added a note to the bottom of the article.
If you note that this contains Glutamic acid, which is bioequivalent to MSG in your product, adding a note at the bottom is contradictory to the title of your article. If it has MSG qualities then you shouldn’t (can’t) use the term MSG-Free to advertise. Called Bait-N-Switch.
MSG and Glutamic acid aren’t the same thing. If you don’t eat glutamic acid, then I’m assuming you just don’t eat food at all, Dr. Google, since it’s naturally occurring in practically everything.