This keto blue cheese dressing runs under 1 gram of net carb per 2 tablespoons and stays thick because it is built on sour cream and mayonnaise, no milk. That is the whole trick. Blend half the blue cheese in for a creamy base, pulse the rest in for chunks, and chill it so the flavor blooms.
In addition to my last post on Decorating Your Salad, I thought I would add one of my favorite salad dressing recipes. I never ever buy pre-made dressings. Salad dressings are so easy to make, and they not only are better for you, but they taste amazing. Along with cooking low carb food I also try to cook with minimal ingredients. I find that it enhances the flavors more. This recipe is the epitome of this concept. I promise that once you make this recipe you will never buy blue cheese dressing ever again.
Why bottled blue cheese dressing is not low carb
Crack open the cap and read the label on a bottle of Kraft or Marzetti chunky blue cheese. Two things you do not want are usually near the top: soybean oil and sugar. The sugar is there to round out the cheap oil, and it is exactly what pushes a so-called savory dressing onto your carb count. The light and fat-free versions are worse, because pulling the fat out means piling the sugar back in. Make it yourself and there is no sugar to add, no soybean oil, and nothing on the label you cannot pronounce. The whole batch is blue cheese, sour cream, mayo, and a shot of hot sauce.
The no-milk fix for runny dressing
Most people end up with watery blue cheese dressing because they reach for milk or buttermilk to thin it. Milk is mostly water, so it thins the body, mutes the tang, and drips lactose carbs into a dressing that was low carb a second ago. Skip it. Sour cream and mayonnaise give you a base that is already thick and creamy, so you are not chasing the consistency at all. If you do want it pourable for drizzling, loosen it with a splash of heavy cream or a spoonful of the brine from the blue cheese tub, a teaspoon at a time. Both keep it rich and low carb where milk would water it down. Then chill it. The cold firms the sour cream back up and lets the blue cheese bloom, which is why a dressing made ahead always tastes sharper than one you spoon up right out of the food processor.
Blue cheese or ranch
Blue cheese and ranch dressing are the two steakhouse classics that happen to be naturally low carb once you make them at home, so it is worth knowing which one your salad wants. Blue cheese is chunky and sharp, all funk and tang, the one you reach for with buffalo wings or a wedge of iceberg. Ranch is smooth and herby, the gentler pick for crudites and milder greens. Both live on the same creamy base, which is why neither needs sugar to taste good. I keep a jar of each in the fridge. This blue cheese is also my go-to over a cobb salad, where the chunks land right on the bacon and egg.
Where blue cheese dressing comes from
This dressing leans on French cheese, but the recipe itself is pure American. The earliest printed blue cheese dressing turns up in a 1928 Chicago hotel cookbook, and by the 1950s American restaurants were ladling it over iceberg wedges with bacon, the steakhouse pairing it still owns. Food historians are fairly sure the dressing did not come from France at all, only the cheese did. Which cheese is up to you. Roquefort is the sharpest and saltiest, the original wedge-salad pick, Gorgonzola is milder and almost sweet, and Danish blue is the everyday crumble most American kitchens actually reach for. Stilton, the English blue, works too. Any of them folds into the same sour-cream-and-mayo base, so choose by how much funk you want and crumble a little extra in by hand at the end.
How to use it
Beyond the obvious bowl of greens, this is a dip as much as a dressing. Spoon it next to hot wings, drizzle it over a wedge salad, or use it as a cold dip for celery and cucumber. The chunks of blue cheese are the point, so do not over-blend that second half. If you like it sharper, a little more crumbled cheese stirred in by hand at the end never hurts. Feel free to change it up and make it your own.
Sources:
USDA FoodData Central, nutrient reference for blue cheese, mayonnaise, and sour cream
Kraft and Marzetti, chunky blue cheese dressing product labels
Sugarfreechic test kitchen, homemade low-carb blue cheese dressing notes
