This Roasted Jalapeno Ranch dressing is made with my dairy-free Homemade Ranch Seasoning and easily made paleo!

Are you a ranch dressing remixer, too? I feel like I've made every Latin-inspired variation of paleo ranch I can come up with.

(And if you've been around here long, you'll know that I'm still a hard core ranch lover. Like, I put it on everything like I'm six.)

Jalapeno Ranch Ingredients

• Homemade Ranch Seasoning
• Avocado Oil Mayo (like Primal Kitchen)
• Coconut drinking milk (as opposed to the thicker canned coconut milk)
• Lime
• Jalapenos
• Cilantro
• Nutritional Yeast (optional, but highly recommended)

Besides roasting the jalapenos (which is super easy) it's just a dump and blend situation.

I like to clean the seeds out of my jalapenos so the dressing won't be too spicy, but you can leave them in if you'd like a bigger punch of heat.

By the way, roasting the jalapenos mellows them out, too.

If you're roasting other things (like other vegetables or salmon) you can toss them on the pan, too. I love cooking components for more than one dish at a time.

Once your jalapenos are finished roasting, just blend up all of your ingredients!

I use my food processor, but you can toss everything into a blender, too.

If you don't have either, just chop up the jalapeno and cilantro as finely as you can and whisk everything together in a bowl or a mason jar.

Jalapeno Ranch Add-Ins

Here are a few fun things you can add (or add a combination of them!)

• Half of an avocado. You can never go wrong with this.
• Roast other kinds of chilis! Anaheim & poblano chilies are especially good roasted.
• A few shakes of hot sauce to give it some extra heat and flavor
• A minced chipotle pepper or two would give it a nice, smoky flavor.
• ½ clove of fresh garlic
• Zest the lime for extra limey-ness
• If you're OK with dairy, replace the nutritional yeast with some Mexican Cotija cheese

How long does Homemade Ranch last in the fridge?

If you're using commercially made mayonnaise, it will last 10-14 days.

If you're making your own mayonnaise, I'd keep it under a week unless you hatch chickens in your backyard and you're confident of their freshness and quality.

Ways to Use Jalapeno Ranch Dressing

• Drizzle it over a Latin-inspired salad or rice bowl! The Sweet Chipotle Salmon I just posted and the Instant Pot Green Chile Shredded Beef are especially good with this dressing!
• Use it as a dipper for Fiesta Popcorn Chicken or roasted vegetables. (Mmm. or Sweet Potato Fries)
• Putting ranch on nachos isn't too much, is it? Paleo Nachos are delish with it.
• I love a creamy sidekick with these Stacked Roasted Vegetable Enchiladas!

To sum it up -- head to my Latin/Tex-Mex section of my Recipe Index and put it on ALL THE THINGS.

Roasted Jalapeno Ranch Dressing (Paleo)

Yield: About 1 ½ cups

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 12 minutes

Total Time: 22 minutes

Our favorite paleo ranch blended with charred, roasted jalapenos and fresh cilantro!

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Ingredients

• 2 jalapenos, cut in half and seeded
• 1 Tablespoon avocado oil
• 1 lime
• ½ cup avocado oil mayonnaise
• ¼ cup coconut or almond milk
• 2 teaspoons dry ranch dressing mix
• ½ bunch of fresh cilantro (about ½ cup roughly chopped)
• 2-3 teaspoons nutritional yeast
• Pinch of sea salt

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees F. Place the seeded jalapenos cut-side up on a small baking sheet and drizzle with avocado oil. (Leave the seeds in if you want the dressing to be spicy.) Roast the peppers for 12 minutes or until they're soft and charred on the back.
2. Put the peppers in your blender or food processor along with the juice from ½ of the lime and the rest of the ingredients. Pulse or blend until thoroughly combined. Taste, and add more lime juice and salt, if needed.
3. Pour the dressing into a lidded jar and store chilled for up to 7 days.

Notes

Nat's Notes:

1. If you'd like it spicier, leave the seeds in some of the jalapeno halves. Or shake some hot sauce into it before it's blended.
2. I used coconut milk in the carton (for drinking) for this. The thicker canned coconut may give this a coconut flavor.
3. The nutritional yeast gives it a deeper, "cheesy", umami flavor, but you can leave it out if you like.

The post Roasted Jalapeno Ranch (Paleo) appeared first on Perry's Plate.

Kale chips are soooo 2012. I tried making them in 2012 and thought they were bitter and weird. What was all the hype? Were kale chips just a weird hipster thing that everyone pretended to like but no one actually liked them?

Like quinoa?

JK. Quinoa's OK. Sometimes.

A few years ago I grilled kale for my Chimichurri Steak and Potato Salad with Grilled Kale, and mixed up with that cilantro dressing, those crispy greens were actually pretty tasty.

I didn't give kale chips another thought until a few weeks ago when a friend suggested I make ranch kale chips with my Paleo Dry Ranch Seasoning. I figured it was worth a try, I mean I love that ranch seasoning a lot. She also suggested putting nutritional yeast on them to give them a "cheesy" flavor.

Or was that my idea? (Do you remember, Kristi?) Anyhow, after our conversation I felt like tackling kale chips again.

I made a trip to the farmer's market and picked up a couple bunches of kale from my friend Elizabeth who runs a local farm. You can use lacinato/dinosaur kale like these or you can use the curly kind.

The seasoning that goes on this is really simple and only a few ingredients. To solve the bitterness problem, I remembered a technique I learned to help reduce bitterness in kale when making a salad -- you massage the kale with some acid and a little oil.

I massaged kale in these recipes, too: Massaged Kale Salad, Kale Salad with Roasted Butternut Squash and Apples, and Kale Caesar Salad with Garlic Shrimp & Prosciutto.

Have you tried any of those salads? They're all pretty amazing. I never thought I'd EVER eat raw kale, but rubbing lemon juice on those leaves calms that bitterness right down. It's magical.

Need more protein + fiber forward snacks? Click HERE to get my FREE Snacking Cheat Sheet and an exclusive recipe!

One thing.. I noticed that the curly kale crisps up better than the dino kale, but after the dino kale chips sat out for a while (*cough* overnight on the counter) the softer kale chips had crisped up, too.

What's nutritional yeast? It's deactivated, dried yeast. It has a "cheesy" kind of flavor, and it's great to use in paleo, vegan, or other dairy-free recipes where you need to add a little savory flavor and cheese is off limits. I actually used it quite a bit in my cookbook, The Big Book of Paleo Slow Cooking.

It sort of looks like fish food, but don't let that scare you off. I buy mine at a grocery store with a large bulk section, but you can also find it at health food stores, on Amazon, and even at Trader Joe's now!

If you like these kale chips, try my Kale Quinoa Salad!

Cheezy Ranch Kale Chips

Yield: Serves 6

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 14 minutes

Additional Time: 1 minute

Total Time: 30 minutes

If you've never liked kale chips, I urge you to try these. Massaging lemon juice into the kale takes away the bitterness, and the ranch seasoning + nutritional yeast is a delicious combination!

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Ingredients

Toggle ingredient group

• 1 large or 2 small bunches of kale, any kind
• Juice from ½ of a lemon, about 2 tablespoons
• 2 Tablespoons avocado oil
• 1 Tablespoon Paleo Dry Ranch Seasoning, or other clean Ranch-type dry seasoning
• 1 Tablespoon nutritional yeast
• ¼ teaspoon sea salt

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Tear the kale leaves from the stems and chop or rip the leave into smaller, "chip-sized" pieces. Discard the stems. Spread the leaves out on a rimmed baking sheet.
3. Combine the rest of the ingredients in a small bowl, then drizzle it over the kale. Use your hands to spread and massage the seasoning mixture into the kale leaves, for about 1 minute.
4. Spread the kale out evenly on the pan again and bake for 12-14 minutes until the kale begins to turn golden brown and most of the chips are crispy. They'll continue to crisp as they cool and sit for a while.
5. Allow them to cool on the baking sheet instead of dumping them, hot, into a serving bowl. They'll crisp up better this way.
6. Serve!

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