Sunday, April 10, 2011

Lunch Box Recipes: Spicy Ranch Dip

I know it has been an absurd amount of time since I last updated this blog. Unfortunately, I can't provide a legitimate excuse other than lacking the motivation. Shame on me. As some of you might know, I started working as a temp for a well-known magazine in my hometown back in January (I can't disclose the name due to privacy reasons). While I've been working, I've started bringing my lunch from home as a way of being kind to my bank account and saving my body from eating 2 meals of unhealthy "stuff" to put it nicely. In the beginning, I was eating lots of mac and cheese and fried foods, and frozen meals (organic of course). Now that I've adjusted to my work schedule, I'm finding time to do a little bit more cooking. I'm lucky in that I receive A LOT of food magazines so I don't think I'll ever be short of finding inspiration for cooking ever again.

Besides looking for healthier alternatives for lunch, I've also started choosing recipes that allow me to use ingredients that I already have in my kitchen, which saves me taking multiple trips to the grocery store just to buy a few random items. I realized that I had some ranch dressing cups (don't worry they hadn't expired) from a recipe that I had tried randomly on some unknown date. I came across a recipe on allrecipes.com that was called spicy ranch dressing dip. It looked easy to make and I already had all the ingredients in my kitchen cabinets.

Here is the recipe for spicy ranch dressing:

Ingredients

  • 1 cup mayonnaise
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • 3 tablespoons dry ranch salad dressing mix
  • 2 tablespoons finely chopped red bell pepper
  • 1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
  • 1 small jalapeno pepper, seeded and coarsely chopped
  • 1 dash hot pepper sauce 

Directions

  1. In a blender, combine the mayonnaise, buttermilk, ranch dressing mix, bell pepper, cilantro, jalapeno pepper and hot pepper sauce. Pulse until blended.
The first time I tried making this I was a little overenthusiastic with the hot pepper sauce (FYI: I used Choluha hot sauce, but I'm sure any will do). To make it even spicier, I also added crushed red pepper to the recipe. I don't recommend doing this the night before you actually eat it because I think the dressing absorbs the pepper and it makes it spicier than it should be. For the record though, it tasted AMAZING with carrots and organic blue chips.

Instead of using ranch dressing mix, I used the ready-made ranch dressing. I don't think it really makes much of a difference though. I also used green bell peppers instead of red because that is what I had in my house. I don't think it would really change the flavor if you decided to use a yellow bell pepper.

This is a recipe that I plan to make more regularly simply because it requires very few ingredients (most already being readily available at home) and it's quick to make. Plus, if you love that feeling of your tongue burning just a bit, then I think this recipe does that as well. Enjoy!