who made ranch

Ranch dressing was created by Steve (Steven) Henson, a Nebraska-born plumber who developed the recipe while working in Alaska in the late 1940s–early 1950s, and later popularized it from his Hidden Valley Ranch in California with his wife Gayle.

Quick Scoop: Who Made Ranch?

Ranch as we know it today traces back to Steve Henson, a plumbing contractor who cooked for his work crews in the Anchorage, Alaska area and started experimenting with buttermilk, herbs, and seasonings. After retiring from plumbing in his mid-30s, he and his wife Gayle moved to Santa Barbara County, California, where they bought a guest ranch and renamed it Hidden Valley Ranch. There, their homemade ranch dressing became a hit with guests and grew from a house specialty into a packaged mix and eventually a national staple.

Some food historians point out that earlier buttermilk dressings existed (for example, Texas recipes from the 1930s), but Steve Henson is widely credited as the inventor of modern ranch dressing and the person who turned it into a commercial phenomenon.