Steakhouse Blue Cheese Dressing

This easy, delicious homemade buttermilk blue cheese dressing recipe is just like the dressing we love on a wedge salad at a steakhouse! Just a few ingredients make up this perfect dressing that is great for salads, baked dry rub wings, or homemade potato chips. Make a batch and use it all week for lunches and snacks!

What is it about steakhouse salads that are just so, so good? A great steakhouse makes GREAT salads, and one of my favorites is a classic wedge salad with crunchy iceberg lettuce and blue cheese dressing. I love making them at home because I have a better use for $17 than some iceberg lettuce, but that's neither here nor there.

Let's dive in (pun intended).

Recipe Notes

This buttermilk blue cheese dressing is VERY simple, and a great ingredient to make in advance and use for salads throughout the week.

The flavor profile that makes it feel like restaurant dressing - secret ingredients - is very finely minced shallot, buttermilk, and lots of flavor from salt and lemon juice.

Pro Tip: The hero of steakhouse dressing, a true Ruth's Chris copycat dressing, uses Roquefort in this recipe. I think any kind of blue cheese you enjoy works great, but Roquefort is a classic choice!

Beyond that, it's just a matter of measuring ingredients, whisking the dressing together, and figuring out what we're going to dunk in it. Buffalo wings? Veggies? Chips or fries? All absolutely hell yes answers.

Ingredients and Ingredient Notes

• Buttermilk gives the dressing a really classic homemade flavor and tang. It's so, so good.
• Sour cream and mayo (use both, full fat!) add body and creaminess to the dressing.
• Blue cheese crumbles make this, um, taste like what it is. Use blue cheese crumbles or crumble up a piece of blue cheese yourself - 1.5 ounces ounces or so, any kind you like. Gorgonzola will make this a bit more mild. You can add extra blue cheese if you like a ton of blue cheese flavor, too!
• Shallot. Very finely minced, this gives a little onion/garlic essence to the whole dressing and is very yummy. I use half a shallot, but if you're sensitive to alliums, use ¼ shallot to start and see if that makes the dressing strong enough for you.
• Lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce for tang and flavor.
• Salt and pepper because flavor = restaurant-quality food at home!

Step By Step Instructions

1. If you need to, make the buttermilk first and let it sit for 5 minutes while you prep and measure the rest of the ingredients.
2. Add all the ingredients to a bowl, and whisk together to combine and break up the blue cheese a bit.
3. Taste the dressing and add a few more pinches of salt if you'd like, or more blue cheese if you like a lot of blue cheese flavor. Keep in mind that the flavor of the dressing will intensify as it sits.
4. Store it in the fridge or serve the dressing right away!

Now, this tastes like a cross between ranch and blue cheese dressings, which keeps the blue cheese flavor front and center without being Only Blue Cheesy. Feel free to add more blue cheese if you'd like!

Pro Tip to Make This A Dip (a rhyme!): If you want to serve this as dip, use less buttermilk and more sour cream and mayo (⅓ cup each), to have a thicker end result while still using 1 cup total of the three creamy components. Everything else is the same!

Serving Suggestions

I love this on a veggie tray with tons of veggies for dunking. It's also great served with wings (or, let's be honest, frozen buffalo chicken tenders), chips, fries, or drizzled over salads. It's just a really, really good all purpose blue cheese dressing.

Make Ahead and Storage

• This dressing can be made in advance and stored in the fridge for 5-7 days. The blue cheese flavor will intensify as the dressing sits, so keep that in mind.
• Keep the dressing stored covered in the fridge; I like to store it in a jar to pour out a little bit at a time.
• If the dressing gets to thick as it sits, you can thin it out with more buttermilk (or just plain milk) 1 tablespoon at a time. Add a pinch of salt if you do this to keep the seasoning right.

Make this soon, make it often, and let me know all the ways you use it!

Recipe

Steakhouse Blue Cheese Dressing Recipe

Lindsay Howerton-Hastings

Simple, delicious homemade blue cheese dressing with buttermilk, just like at your favorite steakhouse! This is classic on a wedge salad, but is also great as a dip for veggies or wings.

5 from 11 ratings

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 15 minutes mins

Course Sauce/Condiment

Cuisine American

Servings 6

Equipment

• ▢
  Small Whisk
• ▢
  Measuring Cups And Spoons
• ▢
  Glass Mixing Bowl
• ▢
  Juicer

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

• ▢ ½ cup buttermilk (see note on how to make your own)
• ▢ ¼ cup mayonnaise
• ▢ ¼ cup sour cream
• ▢ ¼ cup blue cheese crumbles (1-2 ounces total depending on your preference)
• ▢ ½ shallot finely minced
• ▢ 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• ▢ ½ teaspoon salt plus more if needed
• ▢ ½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• ▢ black pepper to taste

Instructions

 

• Whisk all ingredients together in a bowl.
• Taste the dressing, and add more salt, pepper, or blue cheese to your preference. The dressing will thicken and the blue cheese will get stronger as it rests.
• Serve with salad, veggies for dipping, or buffalo wings. YUM.

Notes

Make your own buttermilk: If you prefer to not buy buttermilk for just this recipe, you can make your own with ½ teaspoon milk (dairy) and 2 teaspoons white or plain rice vinegar. Stir the vinegar and milk together and let it sit for about 5 minutes before making the rest of the dressing.

Blue cheese: You can adjust the quantity of your blue cheese based on how strong your cheese is and your personal preference. 1 ounce of cheese will crumble to about ¼ cup of blue cheese crumbles (or use crumbles that come in the deli section at the grocery store). As the dressing sits, the blue cheese flavor will get stronger.

Recipe testing note: This dressing was tested using Diamond kosher salt and full fat, regular mayo and sour cream. 

Tried this recipe?Let me know how it was!

This recipe was originally published in October 2011 and has been rewritten with more clear instructions and better pictures. Personal growth and all that.