The Ranch Dressing You'll Want to Put on Everything
It's dairy free, good for you, tastes great, and is better for the environment
Andrew Zimmern knows a thing or two about flavor. The chef, critic, and restaurateur — behind shows like Family Dinner With Andrew Zimmern; Wild Game Kitchen With Andrew Zimmern; Bizarre Foods With Andrew Zimmern; and the author of many books, as well as Spilled Milk on Substack — has won four James Beard awards and has a career that keeps on going.
Broken Palate caught up with him recently about what’s cooking in his kitchen and, turns out, a lot of it goes with his homemade ranch dressing. Whether it’s a dip for crudites, Buffalo wings, or (gasp) pizza, ranch dressing is in a regular rotation.
What makes his ranch a standout, he says, one that’s irresistible yet better for you, is it’s made with one of a line of products from dairy-free Nature’s Fynd, the Chicago-based company with an ingredient that was first identified in geothermal springs in Yellowstone National Park. Fy is a nutritional fungi protein that’s created using fermentation technology. Packed with all twenty amino acids, it’s a source of fiber and low in fat.
If this doesn’t sound delicious to you, here’s this: Of Nature’s Fynd products, Zimmern says, he is “very impressed” with the flavor and texture. And he likes the product because it’s better for the earth.
“You can make enough and make it cheaply and there’s no energy waste,” he says of the products made with a nutritional protein. Sold in Whole Foods, Nature’s Fynd includes a line of strawberry, peach, and vanilla yogurt along with plain and chive and onion cream cheese.
“We grow Fy using 99 percent less land, 99 percent less water, and emitting 94 percent fewer greenhouse gasses than beef production at scale,” reads the company website.
Zimmern compares the products’ effects on the environment to, say, lab-grown meats. “We don’t have 20 years to wait, so why not put money into systems that already work?”
Zimmern says he likes Nature’s Fynd as much as the real thing — so that he’s swaping out real cream cheese for Nature’s Fynd, whether it’s on a bagel or as a dip.
“It’s so much better than anything else in the marketplace,” he says of the dairy substitute. “It’s a game changer.”
Dairy-free ranch dressing
1 cup Fynd
½ cup mixed herbs, minced (parsley, chives, tarragon etc)
1 minced shallot
A few dashes of hot sauce ( I like Crystal)
3T lemon juice
1T red wine vinegar
¼ cup olive oil
Pulse in blender and drizzle in cold water until desired consistency is reached. Season with salt and pepper.
