15 Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing Flavors, Ranked Worst To Best

Ranch dressing holds a special place in American cuisine and culture. The herby buttermilk and mayo-based condiment was made popular in the 1950s at a California dude ranch called Hidden Valley, and it skyrocketed in popularity over the next few decades until it became the country's most popular salad dressing. Hidden Valley Ranch has had many competitors across the years since it created this legendary concoction, but it's still the top choice among ranch lovers, and the brand now offers a rainbow of different flavors to stretch the boundaries of what ranch dressing can be.

Original ranch dressing has always been my go-to, but I've occasionally flirted with some flavored options. Over the years, I'd yet to find one that tops the classic, with its perfect balance of creaminess and tang and its bright garlic and dill notes, but it seems like every time I head to the salad dressing aisle, there's a tempting new flavor. My curiosity finally won out and I had to know — among the many contenders, is there a Hidden Valley Ranch flavor that can unseat the original and take the ranch throne?

Someone's got to take last place, and in this case, the answer was glaringly obvious. Hidden Valley Cilantro Lime Ranch, sadly, scored dead last with each food I tried: salad, french fries, and buffalo chicken. I should say up front that, unlike Julia Child, I love cilantro. Because of that, I expected to love this dressing, but I found it nearly impossible to enjoy.

The cilantro element in this dressing is odd. It tastes a few degrees removed from actual cilantro, like someone trying to draw a picture from memory — the details are off, so it's just not quite right. There is a tang, I'll give it that, but it's not a zesty, fresh lime juice flavor; more like a vaguely citrusy vinegar. Cilantro lime ranch is a great idea on paper, and I can imagine if done right it could be a refreshing, bright flavor combination. This one just doesn't work.

Many of Hidden Valley's flavored offerings fall in the spicy category, and of those, the Kickin' Cajun Blackened Ranch was my least favorite. Something about the combination of the two flavor profiles doesn't mesh — it's a clashing rather than a complementary pairing. I appreciate that the heavily herbaceous flavor keeps this dressing firmly in the ranch category, but I think that's its downfall. Ranch and Cajun seasoning are both dimensional, complex flavors, and in this dressing it feels like they're fighting for dominance.

The heat level is decent, hitting you with a peppery punch right out of the gate. It doesn't really build or develop, but it starts and stays strong. The overwhelming battling flavors, along with that heat, drowned out pretty much every food I tried with it, except for the buffalo chicken. In that case, the chicken held its own, and I did enjoy the interplay of both spicy foods working together. While this flavor's an interesting idea, this dressing's identity crisis makes it unbalanced and chaotic.

The combination of ranch and green goddess dressings is not unusual — in fact, adding a Hidden Valley Ranch powder packet to homemade green goddess is a chef-approved flavor hack. Despite the seemingly natural synergy between these two herb-forward concoctions, Hidden Valley's Green Goddess Ranch doesn't really come together. With green goddess, I typically expect there to be a complex melange of fresh herbal flavors, but here, all I got was basil. Now, I have no problem with basil, and in fact grow my own, but I felt that here it completely overwhelmed everything else.

This ranch worked best with salad, with the basil flavor bringing out the freshness of the vegetables. It wasn't terrible with fries, but if I'm going to dip them in a ranch, there are many better options. The strong basil note clashed with the spicy chicken and created a bitter, unpleasant sensation, though I imagine it would be fine with a plain tender. If you are an absolute freak for basil, this green goddess ranch will likely please your palate much more than it did mine.

Another offering in the ranch-plus-heat category, Hidden Valley's Spicy Ranch has a bit more of a cohesive flavor than the Cajun one, but I still found it to be lackluster. The featured pepper here is habanero, and that flavor is definitely present, along with its signature heat which sneaks up on your palate. The creaminess and the heat start off complementing one another well, with a rich ranch taste up front and a building kick that follows. However, the more I ate of this dressing, the less I enjoyed it.

After a few tastes, the spice hit its limit, and with every bite after that, the ranch began to taste sweeter and sweeter. That led to the herbs suddenly tasting out of place, and soon I was left with just the burn. It's an interesting experience with spicy ranch, for sure, but not one that I'd seek out again. I found it least successful with the chicken, as the heat of both seemed to cancel each other out. It was decent with fries, but not great, and I found the acidity of the tomatoes in my salad made it taste sharp and acrid. Maybe this just needs the right accompaniment, but it didn't work with any of the three foods I tried.

Hidden Valley's Southwest Chipotle Ranch was another fairly disappointing foray into the spicy ranch world. I should disclose that I am an unapologetic anti-ketchup evangelist, and most of what I didn't like about this ranch had to do with its inclusion of tomato puree, the fourth listed ingredient. After my first taste, three words popped into my head: spicy ranch ketchup. Then three more words followed: Not for me.

The other issue that irked me was the timidity of this dressing's smokiness. When I think of chipotle chilies, I can immediately smell the smokiness as I open a can of chipotles in adobo and prepare to slather their smoky spice all over barbecue. This has just a hint of that sensation, and I found myself wishing for more. The ranch character gets a bit lost, too, as the peppery heat and tomato sweetness take over. If spicy ranch ketchup sounds like your jam, by all means, scoop this up. For me, it was a miss.

Creamy Jalapeño from Hidden Valley was the first spicy ranch version I enjoyed, and though it didn't rank very high, I wouldn't go out of my way to avoid it. I was hoping for a sharp, fresh, green jalapeño flavor, while this tastes a little more like canned or pickled peppers. Once I got that expectation out of my head, though, I began to appreciate its balance of ranch qualities and chile heat.

The least successful application of this ranch was with salad, as the spice level was just a little too punchy with mellow vegetables. As a dip for fries, it really worked, with the dressing's rich and creamy texture melding well with the fries' soft potato interior and the kick of heat adding dimension. I thought it would clash with the buffalo chicken, but in fact, the two different types of spice together was a fun combination. This is a solid spicy ranch, and though I wouldn't use it on a simple salad, I could see it working on a heartier one, like a taco salad or something in that vein.

As far as I can tell, the only differences between Hidden Valley's Buttermilk Ranch and the original are the amount of buttermilk involved, and the addition of lactic acid in the buttermilk version's ingredient list. You'll find lactic acid in a lot of foods, often naturally occuring in fermented products like yogurt and pickles, or added to others, especially dairy products, as an acidic preservative and to increase tanginess. Tasting the buttermilk and original ranch versions side by side, I could detect a slightly tangier almost sour cream-like flavor in the buttermilk, but the difference was subtle.

Buttermilk turned out to be an enjoyable ranch flavor, but its similarity to the original doesn't do it any favors. The sour note is a nice addition, but it comes at the expense of the herbs. I found the garlic in particular seemed dialed down in this dressing, and as a garlic lover, that bummed me out. This ranch was serviceable with all of my accompaniments but didn't excel at any of them. That said, it's not bad, and I'd reach for it happily, unless a bottle of Hidden Valley Original Ranch is around.

It's a divisive food, but personally, I'm a blue cheese fangirl. I'll take it in any form and configuration — mild or funky, creamy or crystalline, doesn't matter to me. I've been known to grab a hunk of Roquefort and bite right into it. No surprise, then, that I truly enjoyed the Blue Cheese Ranch from Hidden Valley. 

My initial concern, before I tasted it, was that it would basically just be blue cheese dressing and lose its ranch identity. That's not the case at all. The two dressing titans meld together beautifully into a cohesive whole. This has the silky texture and tangy garlicky flavor of a ranch, with a deeper funky, mildly earthy dimension from the blue cheese. As you might have guessed, it's absolutely delicious with buffalo chicken, and great with salad, too. It was fine with fries, though I prefer a purer ranch to dip those in. 

The fact that Hidden Valley's Cracked Pepper Ranch isn't ranked higher than this is a testament to how good the rest of the flavors are. I've gone from hating black pepper as a kid to liking it more and more, but I didn't realize how much I love it until I tried this dressing. It's positively packed with bits of peppercorn in all their fiery pungency and crackling texture. You have to really love black pepper to enjoy this, but if you do, get ready for bliss.

The intensity of the pepper does put this dressing's ranch-ness in the backseat, which is my only real complaint. The herbs just aren't powerful enough to compete and get lost in the sharp swirl of spice. Salad helps bring those notes out a bit, while fries did a good job of mellowing that peppery bite. I was surprised to find the black pepper overwhelmed the buffalo flavor of the chicken — that just goes to show how much of a punch this dressing is packing. If it were a teensy bit ranch-ier, it would be perfection.

As a born-and-bred Californian, avocados are a big part of my life. The buttery-soft texture of a ripe avocado makes a fantastic canvas for dressings and dips, and Hidden Valley has crafted a fantastic Avocado Ranch that brings in just enough of the fruit's natural creaminess and nutty flavor to enhance the ranch in both taste and mouthfeel.

Sweetness and earthiness from the avocado add dimension that's perfectly complementary to ranch's brightness and tang. The herbs, garlic, and onion flavors are a bit more muted than they are in other dressings, but the subtlety works. This was among the most successful dressings with salad, balancing out the acidity of tomatoes and adding richness to crisp lettuce and celery. I found it a bit too mellow with french fries, but it was wonderful as a dip for chicken, cooling off the buffalo heat without overpowering its flavor. If you enjoy a thicker, mellower style of ranch, give this a try.

I hadn't had much luck with Hidden Valley's hot and spicy flavors until I tried Buffalo Ranch. Because ranch is such a popular dip for buffalo chicken, the camaraderie between these two flavors is no surprise. Hidden Valley smartly sticks to what works here, keeping the ranch vibes strong while simply adding the extra oomph of buffalo sauce. As soon as I opened the squeeze bottle and smelled it, I started salivating like Pavlov's dog as visions of chicken wings flooded my mind.

I enjoyed it with salad — especially the celery, as it's a traditional buffalo chicken side — and it was great with the fries, too, giving them plenty of kick. I wasn't sure how it would play with the chicken, but the double layer of buffalo turned out to be delicious, and the ranch element cooled everything down just enough with each bite. This is a fabulous ranch, only overtaken by the top four flavors because I'm not always in the mood for heat. When I am, though, this is what I'm reaching for.

Here's the thing: Ranch is already garlicky. Similar to the buttermilk ranch, the concept of Hidden Valley's Buttermilk Ranch is taking an ingredient that's already present in the dressing, and simply dialing it up. While I felt that amping up the buttermilk drowned out other flavors, doing the same here with garlic serves to enhance ranch's signature brightness.

Since I don't eat ketchup, I'm always looking for alternative french fry dips, and this garlic ranch might just be my new favorite. It has aromas and flavors that are reminiscent of buttery, garlicky pizza dipping sauce, which made me wish I'd added pizza crust to my taste-testing experience — I'm certain this would crush in that category. It's great with salad, adding a pungent, savory kick. While it was fine with the chicken, there were plenty of other flavors that worked much better. Still, I'm going to put this in my regular ranch rotation from now on, and I can't wait to try it with pizza.

This is the one that started it all, the backbone upon which the entire ranch ecosystem was built, and it deserves our adoration and respect. Hidden Valley Original Ranch was almost unbeatable, but will have to settle for bronze. It's great stuff. The push-and-pull of tanginess and creaminess is perfectly calibrated, the fresh herbal flavor profile is bright and savory, and the finish is cooling with a snappy garlic bite. This dressing brings the same zing to salad, fries, and spicy chicken, working well with all three.

There's nothing bad to say about Original Hidden Valley. The only reason it ended up here instead of in one of the top two spots is because, after trying those flavors, this one seemed a little less exciting. It's the best basic ranch on grocery shelves, if you ask me. The only thing it lacked compared to the top two was the element of surprise. This will still be my go-to store bought ranch when I want the best classic, traditional version of the dressing.

Generally speaking, whenever you add parmesan cheese to something, it makes that thing better. This rich, nutty, umami-bomb cheese improves everything it touches, so it was no surprise to me that Parmesan Ranch from Hidden Valley was an absolute home run. There's some romano cheese in there, as well, adding more complexity to this excellent dressing.

With salad, it takes on a caesar-like quality thanks to the interplay of the vegetables and cheeses. I loved it as a fry dip, as the cheese added a pleasant saltiness and richness to the otherwise mellow potatoes. With the spicy chicken, it was interesting enough to keep me going back for more, enhancing the flavor of the chicken while tamping down the heat of the spicy breading. More than any other ranch, the parmesan flavor got my wheels spinning with ideas on ways to use it. Caesar salad lovers, cheese heads, and umami fanatics, this is the ranch for you.

Hidden Valley's Bacon Ranch is my number one pick for several reasons. First, it's indisputably ranch — you don't have to fight through any other flavors to get to its ranch heart. The classic herb profile, fresh vinegar tang, and garlic and onion kick are all front and center. Its texture is thick and rich, the perfect viscosity for dipping. Pillowed throughout this creamy concoction are bits of bacon which not only add a sweet, smoky, meaty flavor, but also texture.

The bacon doesn't wash out or detract from the ranchiness of it all; it feels perfectly at home. This dressing amped up vegetables effortlessly, turning my very simple salad into something cobb-esque. It will shock no one to learn that as a french fry dip, bacon ranch beat out everything else, giving the fries a loaded baked potato energy that was incredibly satisfying. Even with the spicy chicken, which I was skeptical about, this dressing delivered, bringing a bit of bacon sweetness to complement the spice as the ranch cooled off the heat. If you only try one Hidden Valley flavor, it should be this one.

I'm an avid lover of ranch, and I grew up on Hidden Valley, which also happens to be Daily Meal's number one ranch dressing brand. Some of the flavors included in this list were samples that I received from Hidden Valley, and others I purchased myself. Whether the flavor was a sample or a purchase had no impact on how I ranked the dressing.

Once I had all of my flavors, I tasted them. First I tried a small spoonful on its own to get a baseline idea. I then tried each condiment three different ways: as a salad dressing with lettuce, celery, and tomato, as a dip for french fries, and as a dip for spicy buffalo chicken tenders. I ranked each category separately, then put all of the data together to find the dressing that was the most flavorful and versatile. I also asked myself one pivotal question about each dressing: Is it ranch? No matter how good a flavor was, if it didn't have a discernible ranch-ness to it, it dropped lower in the ranking.