Cashew Ranch w/Pantry Ingredients

Super creamy ranch dressing that you can make in minutes with simple pantry ingredients that requires no mayo, no eggs, and no dairy. If you have nuts, seasonings and a blender, you can whip this yummy ranch dip/dressing up in no time!

The secret to making it is two-fold: first, there’s the cashews, which vegans often use to make creamy sauces and all sorts of things, but there’s a second element to this that adds to the creaminess but is one of those things we all have on hand, but we never think about using.

It’s called aquafaba and the first time I heard that word, I had no idea what they were talking about, but it’s a fancy word for the liquid that you drain off of cooked beans … yeah, I’m talking about that same stuff you normally strain off and discard down the sink. It turns out that the bean cooking liquid is actually very healthy and useful because it contains proteins similar to the ones in eggs, so perhaps we should stop pouring it down the drain and actually USE it for something.

For some reason, during the coronavirus, it seems so much more important to me to make good use of everything we have on hand and try not to waste things. I’ve always tried to be mindful of waste, but now it feels almost critical. I’m less focused on flavor and more focused on safety, frugality and health.

The cool thing is if you have a mini blender or an immersion blender, it’s really easy to make good use of your aquafaba and end up with a dressing/dip that’s super creamy and delicious and requires only pantry ingredients you might already have on hand. So in case you run out of mayo or eggs or yogurt or milk … or in case you have allergies to any of those things, you can still have a nice creamy ranch dressing/dip in just a few minutes. Personally, for the health factor, I’m thinking I’m going to just make this my go-to dressing from now on. I like my other ranch dressing recipes, don’t get me wrong, but I think this version is quite satisfying, it makes great use of things I’d normally throw away, and it’s a fun science experiment too. (I just thought I’d throw that out there for those of you home-schooling your kiddos right now. ) In case you’re interested in how it works (or want to use this as a lesson for your kids), here’s an article about the science behind Aquafaba.

Can you substitute other nuts? Yes, I think you could. I know we currently live in a world where you might have to substitute one thing for another … so while I’ve not tried this particular recipe with other nuts, I want to tell you I’ve had similar results in other recipes (where I was adding them for creaminess) when I used almonds or walnuts in place of cashews with very similar results.

What if there’s a nut allergy? How to make ranch without nuts? I’ve seen recipes for Aquafaba ranch dressing, but I got nervous when I started … it looked WAY too thin and I wasn’t sure it was going to turn out like I wanted, so that’s why I added the cashews … to me, it’s like a little security blanket to make sure this crazy project goes well. Perhaps you could substitute sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds, but honestly, I’ve not tried that.

The other thing I want to tell you is while this ranch dressing initially may appear a little thin, once it gets cool in the fridge, it will thicken up A LOT, so it’s more like a thick creamy ranch dip than it is a drizzle. Personally I love that rich, thick, creamy texture, but thought I should warn you this WILL happen once you refrigerate this ranch.

So whether you want ranch for drizzling on your salad or as a dip for steak fries or baby carrots, chicken nuggets or heck, for your pizza, give this creamy rich (and healthy) cashew aquafaba ranch dressing a try! You might just never go back …

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