This is a great time of year to fix your favorite salads as side dinner salads or larger salads like Cobb Salad, Chef Salad, and Chicken Salads.  In the summer when the temperature rises and it is so hot, we will fix a specialty entree salad and have it for dinner.  I tried for several years to find a Ranch Dressing recipe that we liked.  I would try a recipe, add spices, remove spices and it still did not taste right.  I finally made this one and I love the Ranch Dressing and the Blue Cheese Dressing.  I have not bought salad dressing for years.  Salad dressing is easy to make and it does not have that weird after taste of preservatives that you taste with store bought dressing.

Salads taste different to me whether you tear the greens and chunk the vegetables, chop the salad and vegetables, or serve lettuce wedges.  Change the way you fix you salads and add different things to the salad so it is not boring.

Salad Wedge

Ingredients
1 head of lettuce
1 tomato thinly diced
2-3 slices of bacon
Nuts (optional) sunflower seeds or toasted pecans

Preparation

Fry 2-3 slices of bacon until crisp in a skillet.  Remove the bacon from the skillet.  When cool crumble the bacon into small pieces. Set aside.

Cut a ripe tomato into thin pieces.  Set aside.

Wash the head of lettuce and remove the outer leaves.  Discard the outer leaves.

Remove the core of the lettuce by cutting around the core and pulling it out.  Discard the core.

Drain the head of lettuce on a paper towel.

Cut the lettuce into large wedges and place on individual salad plates.

Top with the Ranch Dressing or Blue Cheese Dressing.

Add a few pieces of bacon, tomato, and nuts over the top of the dressing.

Ranch Dressing

Ingredients
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
1/2 teaspoon dried dill weed
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

Preparation

In a large bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, sour cream, buttermilk, chives, parsley, dill, garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper.

When blended, cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before serving.  The longer it is in the refrigerator the better it tastes.

It will stay in the refrigerator for about one week.

Blue Cheese Salad Dressing

Use the recipe from above.  Stir in a couple of tablespoons of crumbled blue cheese.

When blended, cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before serving.  The longer it is in the refrigerator the better it tastes.

It will stay in the refrigerator for about one week.

Tip:
You may want to make the Ranch Dressing and put half in one container.  Stir some of the Blue Cheese into the remaining dressing and put it in another container.
This works really well if you have children (or adults) that do not like Blue Cheese.

Enjoy!