Chronicles of Hidden Valley

Ranch dressing. You know it. Most of you love it. Evidently, So do recent European World Cup visitors. I chuckle at that. While stationed in Germany in the ‘80s, Cath and I received Hidden Valley Ranch spice packets in care packages from home and introduced German friends to its deliciousness back then.

It’s true. While stationed in Germany at the time, no local stores carried Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing, nor did the Army Commissary. We loved the stuff, but there was no local sourcing. What to do? Plead with friends and family to send us the dry packets in care packages. We would get a regular shipment to feed our fix every couple of months.

Do you remember those packets? Hidden Valley wasn’t really available in bottles yet, so you had to “make it” yourself.

The recipe was simple: one cup of buttermilk, one cup of mayonnaise (preferably Hellman’s), and one spice packet. Mix vigorously.

It was delicious – the creaminess, the herbs, the tang of the buttermilk.

And maybe, beneath all that flavor, there was a hint of something else. Looking back, I realize Hidden Ranch wasn’t just a dressing—it was a tether to the States, a small, tangible taste of home.

Sometimes it’s the small things.  

At the time, I believe we only used it for salads. I don’t recall using it as a dip, and I’m not sure anyone really did back then. Also, You needed to use it a few days after making it, or the buttermilk would start to turn and solidify, which wasn’t pleasant. It wouldn’t surprise me if the first time someone used it for a dip, was to finish it up before it went bad. 

It was interesting to serve it to German friends on a salad. They would see it and initially mistake it for some sort of blue cheese dressing. Then, they tasted it and immediately asked what it was.  We explained the whole ritual of receiving the care packages with the spice packets and “making” the dressing. From a Deutschland perspective, I suppose it was all very unGerman, since there was no actual making involved, but people seemed to like it well enough. We served it to American and German friends throughout the ‘80s in Germany.

Ranch Dressing was actually invented in the early 1950s by a gentleman named Steve Henson, who originally used it as a salad dressing to feed work crews in Anchorage, Alaska. Later, in 1956, he purchased a guest ranch in California and named it Hidden Valley Ranch.

He served the dressing to his guests at the Ranch, and it became such a hit, he started selling jars of it. Its reputation grew, and in 1972, the Clorox Company bought the recipe for $8 million. They commercialized it, selling the same spice packets Cathy and I used to hoard. Eventually, they developed a recipe that replaced the buttermilk with regular milk and also started selling it in glass bottles, which eventually morphed to the plastic bottles we see today.

Other companies followed suit, and by 1992, Ranch became the best-selling dressing in America, finally supplanting “Italian.”  It also developed into one of the more ubiquitous American dips – people use it with cut vegetables, wings, nuggets, tots, pizza and a great many other fried or processed foods. If it could be dipped, Ranch became the choice.

Meanwhile, Ranch never really developed a market in Europe. I suspect this is at least partly because most Europeans still make their salad dressings from scratch. I can tell you, those homemade versions are mighty tasty and blow away most store-bought dressings, whatever the variety. Any home chef will tell you the same.

Which makes the recent World Cup traveler fascination with it all the stranger. I’m guessing most were experiencing it as a dip rather than a dressing, but who knows? Interestingly, so many folk were trying to take it home, the TSA issued a general travel warning that the standard-size Ranch containers exceeded the limit for carry-on luggage. You just know that any Ranch Dressing confiscated at the airport didn’t make it any further than the TSA break room. I suppose if a dressing is good enough to cause a scene at a TSA checkpoint, it’s officially made it.

It’s funny to think of Ranch as our own little American culinary export, even if it took forty years from when Cath and I first used it in Germany. While I’ll always stand by the superiority of a well-made home vinaigrette, there’s no denying that Ranch holds a firm place in our pantry.

I should also mention that decades ago, we migrated to the plastic bottle variety, although we do stick with the Hidden Ranch version. Last week, I noticed at our grocery store that you can still buy the packets to mix with milk and mayo, but I haven’t found the buttermilk version yet. I also know you can now find “made from scratch” recipes for Ranch Dressing online, but have yet to try one.

Life changes – I love to cook, but we all succumb to  conveniences of modern life. I do make my own vinaigrettes, or blue cheese dressings, or garlic aioli, particularly if guests are coming over. I’m a purist about some things, but i also know that often, squeezing Ranch out of a plastic bottle is just fine.

I’m curious—do you have a “Ranch moment”? Love it? Hate it? Made the journey like we did? Any unusual foods you like to dip in it? Let me know in the comments.

Addendum:

• We had two other regular care packages we received. The first was Cathy’s lipgloss – Bonnie Bell. It was another thing neither local stores nor the commissary carried. She used Bonnie Bell for years, until it disappeared and she couldn’t find it anywhere. The second was a regular shipment of current TV shows and movies from our good friend Howard. You can read more about the videos from Howard here: https://maxnhall.com/2025/12/16/howard-and-binge-watching/