This is strongly based on the America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook recipe, and we make it enough that I’ve stopped measuring. This is something I always like to have on hand during the early season of the CSA (when we have lettuce every week and there’s always something I enjoy raw, dipped in dressing). This week, I enjoyed this as a dip for kohlrabi, snap peas, celery, and even as salad dressing (on salad – crazy, I know)!
Ingredients:
- 3 ounces (or so) blue chees
- 2-3 cloves fresh garlic
- generous ¼ cup buttermilk
- generous ¼ cup sour cream
- scant ¼ cup mayonnaise
- pinch sugar
- splash vinegar (white wine vinegar is recommended, but as long as you don’t mind a brown tint or red tint to your dressing, balsamic or red wine vinegar will both work as well).
- salt & ground black pepper to taste
Preparation:
- Mince garlic or put through a garlic press.
- In a small bowl, combine blue cheese, garlic, and buttermilk. Mash together with a fork until the mixture has a cottage cheese-like consistency.
- Add remaining ingredients and mix together.
- Use as a dip or to top salad.
The Verdict:
What I love about this recipe is the extra bite that comes from the fresh garlic as well as the tang from the buttermilk. Although many grocery store brands of blue cheese dressing are overly heavy on the mayonnaise taste, this recipe includes both buttermilk & sour cream to round out the flavor. I really dislike being able to taste the mayonnaise, so I go easy on that part and then increase the sour cream. I love this recipe, and I’ve even added buttermilk to our milk delivery schedule so that I never have to run to the grocery store for buttermilk to make this recipe happen. I do have to figure out how to make buttermilk pancakes or biscuits or something though, since I don’t like the taste of buttermilk by itself and I don’t ever use up the whole carton before it goes bad.