A Splash Of This Dressing Takes Egg Salad From Bland To Bam
Egg salad is a lunchtime staple. In its easiest form, it's just mayonnaise combined with diced or mashed hard-boiled eggs, but the best part of this dish is that you can add plenty of seasonings and other flavor enhancers to build it exactly how you want. If you're looking for an easy way to kick up the taste of your egg salad without dicing or measuring any fresh herbs and seasonings, then just add some ranch dressing into the mix.
Mayonnaise and mustard are two popular egg salad ingredients, but there are plenty of other ways to upgrade your egg salad, such as parsley, dill, salt, plus other creamy ingredients such as Greek yogurt or even sour cream. But, for all intents and purposes, ranch dressing is essentially all of these flavors and textures in one. The base of ranch is vegetable oil and buttermilk, which gives it an ultra-creamy texture perfect for any salads, including egg salad. Plus, that garlic and onion-infused flavor profile is already there, which takes care of what you probably would have added on your own.
You can incorporate ranch flavor without the buttermilk, too
Egg salad is an easy high-protein meal, but, depending on your specific dietary needs, adding ranch's oil and buttermilk could throw off the nutritional value. As an alternative, you can grab a packet of ranch seasoning from the grocery store, which takes all the flavors of the classic dressing and puts them in powder form. From there, you can add other ingredients to build that creaminess.
Cottage cheese and plain Greek yogurt are both good options for some extra protein, while sour cream brings a nice tang to the egg salad and mayonnaise brings the rich flavor. A blend of any of these for balance would work well, too. The downside is that both ranch dressing and ranch seasoning are not made with fresh herbs. If you wanted, you could always add a handful of fresh parsley or dill, which would build flavor but still help you avoid the chopping and dicing of other ingredients, such as onions, garlic, and other herbs.