Chicken Salad Is 10X More Flavorful With This Salad Dressing (No Mayo Needed)

The next time you make chicken salad and want to amp up its flavor, swap out the mayonnaise for a tasty salad dressing. If you're thinking ranch, you're on the right track. It turns out that ranch is the most popular salad dressing in the U.S., beating out Italian. Since it is creamy and often uses mayonnaise as a base, homemade or store-bought ranch dressing is a natural substitute for mayo in chicken salad. 

Additionally, ranch dressing is packed with delicious and aromatic components. Check the label on a bottle of store-bought ranch, and you'll likely find ingredients such as garlic, onion, dill, parsley, salt, and pepper. Then, there's usually buttermilk or sour cream, if mayonnaise isn't the base of the dressing. Buttermilk and sour cream both add tang and acidity, which cut through the richness of the creamy base and brighten the bland cooked chicken. 

You'll also likely find an umami powerhouse ingredient in store-bought ranch dressing (such as Hidden Valley's). It's the one ingredient upgrade former NFL star Eddie Jackson uses to elevate ranch dressing: MSG, or monosodium glutamate. MSG enhances the savoriness of chicken, making it taste more, well, meaty and appetizing to our taste buds. So if your ranch dressing contains MSG, you're boosting the chicken's flavor in your chicken salad. 

To start using ranch dressing to make your next batch of chicken salad, first choose your favorite flavorful chicken salad recipe to make. Next, simply substitute the mayonnaise in the recipe with ranch dressing. You can use your favorite store-bought bottle of it, or consider trying out a homemade buttermilk ranch dressing recipe instead. 

Since ranch is usually thinner and runnier than mayo, add it a little at a time to your chicken salad. Be sure to stir to coat the chicken and other ingredients in the salad thoroughly. You can also use a mix of ranch dressing and ranch dip to make chicken salad, if you prefer the creamy base of the dish to be thicker. 

If you don't have any ranch dressing handy and don't feel like making a batch from scratch, check your pantry for ranch powder. Making chicken salad with it is a creative way to use ranch powder to cook. Simply mix the powder with sour cream or mayo. The result? Your chicken salad benefits from all the flavors of ranch dressing along with a creamy base.