Blue Cheese Dressing

I love blue cheese dressing for all its intenseness.

I want it to make me sit up and take notice.  This one has all the normal blue cheese intense flavors with plenty of lemon, pepper and other things to make it just right. 

This is so much better than anything you would buy already made, but probably not any cheaper when you account for having to buy the blue cheese crumbles. This is an easy thing to make, but I do understand usually just buying it.

Think of things you can do with homemade blue cheese dressing besides the obvious salad dressing:

• Dressing for BLT Sliders
• Dip for Spicy Boneless Chicken Tenders, or Hot Wings
• Dip for fresh cut veggies
• Side sauce for your grilled steak
• Mix with chopped broccoli, red onions, walnuts and any other veggies that appeal to you for a yummy crunchy salad.
• Baked chicken breasts; First, brown the chicken, place in a baking pan, top with a little (or a lot...) blue cheese dressing and bake at 350 until cooked through.  You could broil it quickly to get a bit of browness to the dressing.This would be great cut up and tossed in a salad too!

Makes about 2 1/2 cups of dressing (easily to halve for a smaller batch)

1 cup mayonnaise

1 cup buttermilk (or 1 cup sour cream, if you want thick dressing)

1 teaspoon dried garlic powder

1 teaspoon Tabasco sauce

1-2 Tbsp lemon juice

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon dijon mustard

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)

2 teaspoons sugar (optional)

4 ounces crumbled blue cheese

Mix the mayonnaise and the buttermilk (or sour cream) together, then adding in everything else, mixing well and adding the blue cheese crumbles last.  

This is even better on day TWO, so it's best to plan ahead, but I must admit I was perfectly happy with the flavors on the night I made it right before dinner.

Keeps for a couple of weeks in the fridge... maybe more.