Chattavore

What I ate, plate by plate.

Jalapeño Ranch Dressing (Chuy’s Tribute)

If ranch dressing makes everything better, jalapeño ranch dressing is even better! This dressing is super simple with fresh jalapeños, mayo, sour cream, buttermilk, and dried herbs and spices. SO good with just a little spice!

a photograph of a jar of jalapeño-ranch dressing with a spoon, a whole jalapeño, and slices of fresh jalapeño

I’m not even embarrassed to admit that I am one of those people who can eat ranch dressing on just about everything. Salad, pizza, breadsticks, chips, vegetables…I could keep going. I love to make my own ranch dressing, and this jalapeño ranch dressing is a shout out to the amazing dip that they bring you at Chuy’s with tortilla chips. I don’t claim that it’s a replica, but when I’m craving some jalapeño ranch, this is what I make.

It’s made with just a few simple ingredients, and aside from the fresh jalapeños, I keep all of them in my house. I whiz it up in my blender, but you could make this in a food processor or, if you chop your jalapeños finely enough, you could whisk it together in a bowl. Try this! You won’t regret it. I’ll be sharing a fish taco recipe next week topped with this. It’s not all that pretty (it’s a little brown🤷🏻‍♀️) but it’s seriously a delicious addition to just about anything I can think of!

What You Need:

a photograph of the ingredients needed to make jalapeño-ranch dressing
  1. Buttermilk
  2. Mayonnaise
  3. Sour Cream
  4. Fresh Jalapeños
  5. Dry Parsley
  6. Dry Dill
  7. Onion Powder
  8. Garlic Powder
  9. Paprika
  10. Salt

How to Make It:

an overhead photograph of a blender of jalapeño-ranch dressing
  1. Place the ingredients in the food processor.
  2. Blend until smooth.
  3. Refrigerate. That’s it! Seriously, that’s all!
a photograph of an open jar of jalapeño-ranch dressing with a fresh jalapeño, slices of fresh jalapeño, and a spoon

Yield: 3/4 cup

2 tablespoons

Jalapeño Ranch Dressing (Chuy’s Tribute)

10 minPrep Time:

10 minTotal Time:

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Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup buttermilk (can sub in regular milk and 1/2 teaspoon vinegar if you don't have buttermilk)
  • 1/4 cup mayonnaise
  • 1/2 cup sour cream
  • 1-2 fresh jalapeños, seeds and ribs removed
  • 1 teaspoon dry parsley
  • 1 teaspoon dry dill
  • 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon paprika
  • pinch salt

Instructions

  1. Combine all ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Refrigerate until ready to use or up to one week.

Notes

If you don't have a food processor or blender, you can finely chop the jalapeños and whisk the ingredients together. The dressing will be slightly chunky. Variations: If you don't have fresh jalapeños, you can use 1-2 tablespoons of pickled jalapeños. You could also add the juice of one lime or the flesh of one avocado to the dressing.

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https://chattavore.com/jalapeno-ranch-dressing-chuys-tribute/

How to Make Cranberry Sauce

What are your thoughts on cranberry sauce? Do you hate it? Or do you like the log of cranberry sauce that comes out of a can, complete with the lines from the can completely intact? If fresh, homemade cranberry sauce is your Thanksgiving style, then this tutorial on how to make cranberry sauce is perfect for you!

a photograph of a jar of homemade cranberry sauce with a spoon in the sauce, with an orange and some loose cranberries in the backgroundClick here to save this recipe on Pinterest!

When I was growing up, my grandmother always made cranberry relish for Thanksgiving dinner. Fresh cranberries, whole oranges, and sugar, all ground up together. No cooking. I liked it okay but the bitterness of the orange pith made it a little much for my young tastebuds.


an overhead photograph of a colander full of fresh cranberries
We really never ate the cranberry sauce that came out of a can, and honestly, I can’t even remember when or where I first tried it. I do remember, though, that when I did try it, I realized that I had been missing out on the deliciousness that is cranberry sauce.
an overhead photograph of a zested orange and a zester with orange zest

Homemade Cranberry Sauce

And then I figured out how to make homemade cranberry sauce. I fell in love, hard, and realized that the canned stuff that you slice is just gateway cranberry sauce. I promise you, canned cranberry sauce in no way compares to homemade cranberry sauce.
a photograph of an orange half on a juicer with freshly squeezed orange juice
Cranberries are a truly amazing little fruit. They have little pockets of air in them, and as you cook them they pop open. Full of their own natural pectin, they thicken their own sauce without the addition of packaged pectin or other thickeners. Literally, all you need to make a delicious cranberry sauce are three ingredients:

  • Fresh cranberries
  • Sugar
  • Water

a photograph of a jar of homemade cranberry sauce with a spoon in the sauce with oranges and cranberries in the background

Cranberry Orange Sauce

I love how the flavor of orange pairs with the flavor of cranberry, so I always use some orange juice and zest to give my homemade cranberry sauce a little zip. But, if you don’t like orange or have another reason not to use it in your sauce, then just leave it out!
a photograph of a jar of homemade cranberry sauce with a spoon in the sauce with oranges and cranberries in the backgroundClick here to save this recipe to your Pinterest holiday cooking and sauce boards!

I call myself a cranberry hoarder because the second that cranberries show up in my grocery store, I start throwing a bag or two into my cart every week so that I can have frozen cranberries available all year. That way, I can have homemade cranberry sauce anytime I want it. Which means that year-round I can make my Instant Pot turkey breast and some cranberry sauce and have a Thanksgiving sandwich whenever. I. Want it.

And that, my friends, is a reason to be happy.

Shared on Meal Plan Monday on Southern Bite and The Weekend Potluck on The Country Cook!


a photograph of a jar of homemade cranberry sauce with a spoon on the jar lid with oranges and cranberries in the background

Recipe Image

Ingredients

  • 1 12-ounce bag fresh or cranberries (I freeze bags of fresh cranberries, and you can just use them straight from the freezer)
  • 3/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 cup water OR the juice of one large orange plus enough water to make a cup
  • zest of one orange, optional

Instructions

  1. Combine all ingredients except orange zest, if using, in a medium saucepan. Set over medium heat. Cook, stirring frequently, until the sauce has thickened and all berries have burst. I use the spoon to gently mash the berries against the side of the pan to make sure they all burst. This takes 10-15 minutes total.
  2. Stir in the orange zest, if using. Place the sauce into a covered container or jar and refrigerate for at least 4 hours. It will keep in the refrigerator for up to two weeks or up to two months in the freezer.
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https://chattavore.com/how-to-make-cranberry-sauce/

Easy Caesar Dressing (No-Egg Recipe) + Video

This easy Caesar dressing is easy to make in your blender or food processor and requires no eggs, so it lasts a long time. And it’s SO tasty! Scroll down for video.
This easy caesar dressing is easy to make in your blender or food processor and requires no eggs, so it lasts a long time. And it's SO tasty! | recipe from Chattavore.com

Essentially, Caesar salad came into my life when Philip Haymaker came into my life.  Well, when he came into my life full-time, anyway (since we knew each other for four years before we started dating).

I remember what he ordered on our first date: angel hair pasta with tomato-basil sauce and a Caesar salad.  That was on a Tuesday night.  We went out again on Friday…I don’t remember what entrée he ordered, but I remember this: he ordered a Caesar salad. And almost ever restaurant salad that he has ordered in the last fourteen and a half (!) years has been the same.

I don’t mean to imply that I had never encountered (or eaten) a Caesar salad before that first date.  I recall a Caesar salad at a Red Lobster in California when I was visiting my aunt the summer before eighth grade.  I also remember telling my mom about it and her saying, “Do you like Caesar salad?” in a shocked sort of way.  It’s just that my family didn’t eat too many Caesar salads back then….most of our salads were of the iceberg variety, with tomatoes and maybe some green peppers or avocado mixed in, usually with a creamy ranch or blue cheese dressing.  It’s actually funny to think about that now because my mom and my sister are pretty much completely enamored with Caesar salad these days and the four of us threaten each other with steak knives to see who’s going to get the last of the salad (not really but almost).

Caesar dressing is an enigma of sorts and there are all types of stories about what Caesar salad is supposed to be.  You know what I say? Caesar salad is supposed to be good.  I don’t think when Caesar Cardini threw together the first Caesar salad in his Tijuana hotel kitchen that he swore then and there under his breath to seek revenge on anyone that dared to change the recipe.

So here’s how it goes…you can put eggs in….or leave them out.  You can use anchovies, or maybe you prefer paste (I do) or maybe you’d rather just use Worcestershire sauce (which contains anchovies)?  Okay.  Maybe you like your cheese shredded, or maybe you like it grated.  Whatevs.  Do you like to rub the bowl with garlic or do you like to crush the garlic into your dressing?  Have it your way.  Would you rather make a pourable dressing or would you rather assemble the salad in the bowl then make the dressing right there on the lettuce (as I did in this post)?  The world is your oyster.

I’ve been doing it that way for a while: lettuce in the bowl, then egg yolks, garlic, cheese, lemon juice/vinegar, olive oil, and cheese plus croutons.  I like it that way….but here’s what I don’t like: one-day salad. Make that one-hour salad.  We all know that once you dress lettuce it’s done for….so I was happy when my aunt gave me her easy Caesar dressing recipe (which I used to have before the blog but lost).  It doesn’t contain eggs so it’s got a relatively long shelf-life (I’ve kept it for up to four days in my fridge) and it emulsifies beautifully if you blend it just fast enough, and you just use what you need.

As you can see, this is not a very “traditional” salad I’ve photographed for you here….I didn’t have bread to make croutons so I crushed up some Stacy’s Simply Naked pita chips.  They were perfect.  And while I prefer shredded cheese on my salads because it coats the leaves oh so perfectly, cheese (Grana Padano in this case but usually Parmigiano Reggiano) shaved with a vegetable peeler makes a nicer visual impact for photos.  My easy Caesar dressing pairs perfectly with this fresh salad.

This easy Caesar dressing is quick enough that you can keep it in the fridge all the time. Which you’ll want to do.
This easy caesar dressing is easy to make in your blender or food processor and requires no eggs, so it lasts a long time. And it's SO tasty! | recipe from Chattavore.com

Recipe Image

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon anchovy paste (or 3-4 flat or rolled anchovy fillets)
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1 teaspoon dijon mustard
  • 1/3 cup red wine vinegar
  • juice of 1/2 lemon
  • 2/3 cups neutral-flavored oil (I use grapeseed, but canola, safflower, or vegetable oil will work as well)
  • salt and pepper (to taste)

Instructions

  1. Press the garlic through a garlic press or grate on a Microplane or fine grater. Place in a food processor or blender or a container you can fit your immersion blender into (like my homemade mayonnaise, a pint-sized Mason jar works well here) along with all of the other ingredients except the oil and vinegar.
  2. Mix well, carefully breaking up/mashing the anchovy fillets if you are using them.
  3. Add the oil and vinegar and blend on the highest speed that your machine allows until completely smooth and emulsified. Use a leaf of the lettuce you will be using to make your salad to taste; adjust seasonings. Store in the refrigerator.
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https://chattavore.com/easy-caesar-dressing/

Shared on Meal Plan Monday on Southern Plate.
This easy caesar dressing is easy to make in your blender or food processor and requires no eggs, so it lasts a long time. And it's SO tasty! | recipe from Chattavore.com

Kale Pesto

This kale pesto with almonds is a quick and easy sauce that is great on pasta, breads, and sandwiches or mixed into vegetable dishes.

This kale pesto with almonds is a quick and easy sauce that is great on pasta, breads, and sandwiches or mixed into vegetable dishes. | Recipe from Chattavore.com
Real talk: is there anything tastier than pesto? If there is, I haven’t found it yet. I remember when I first discovered it, back when Philip and I were first married. A friend at work was talking about it (her girls called pasta with pesto “green noodles”) and I decided that I needed to try it. Armed with my trusty Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook and a super cheap mini food processor that I bought from Target (seriously, some piece of plastic broke off of it every time I used it), I whipped up some amazing spinach pesto. Philip and I developed a serious pesto addiction.
This kale pesto with almonds is a quick and easy sauce that is great on pasta, breads, and sandwiches or mixed into vegetable dishes. | Recipe from Chattavore.com
We don’t eat pesto quite as much these days as we did way back then (almost 16 years ago!) but I still love a good pesto. And homemade is always, always better than store-bought. And why not? It takes about 10 minutes to make, aside from the toasting of the nuts.
This kale pesto with almonds is a quick and easy sauce that is great on pasta, breads, and sandwiches or mixed into vegetable dishes. | Recipe from Chattavore.com
Pesto is traditionally made with basil, but it takes a LOT of basil so I like to bulk it up with spinach. However, I had some kale that I bought at Earth Fare a couple of weeks ago and I really needed to use it up. Voilà: kale pesto. I have to say, it was fantastic. I made it with almonds instead of pine nuts, mostly because I didn’t have pine nuts but also because I recently read about something called pine mouth and I’m a little bit paranoid. It might be a minute before I am brave enough to eat pine nuts again.
This kale pesto with almonds is a quick and easy sauce that is great on pasta, breads, and sandwiches or mixed into vegetable dishes. | Recipe from Chattavore.com
Kale pesto isn’t just for pasta, you guys. I mean, of course it’s perfect on pasta. It’s also amazing slathered on a sandwich (hello, rotisserie chicken & ciabatta???) or just on a hot baguette, mixed with cream cheese to dip a cracker into, stirred into a vegetable side dish, or even whisked into a vinaigrette. No matter what, kale pesto is absolutely fabulous!

Shared on Meal Plan Monday on Southern Plate!
This kale pesto with almonds is a quick and easy sauce that is great on pasta, breads, and sandwiches or mixed into vegetable dishes. | Recipe from Chattavore.com

Recipe Image

Ingredients

  • 2 tightly packed cups of torn kale
  • 1 cup torn basil
  • 1/2 cup toasted almonds
  • 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • salt and ground black pepper

Instructions

  1. Pulse the kale, basil, almonds, and Parmesan cheese in a food processor until finely ground. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula. With the food processor running, pour the olive oil very slowly through the food processor chute. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately or refrigerate for up to a week.
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https://chattavore.com/kale-pesto/

This kale pesto with almonds is a quick and easy sauce that is great on pasta, breads, and sandwiches or mixed into vegetable dishes. | Recipe from Chattavore.com

Baked Brie with Jezebel Sauce

If you need an appetizer that is special but OH SO EASY and versatile, baked brie with Jezebel sauce is perfect and has a little Southern flair!
If you need an appetizer that is special but OH SO EASY and versatile, baked brie with Jezebel sauce is perfect and has a little Southern flair! | Recipe from Chattavore.com
I recently did a kids’ cooking class where we made baked sesame chicken. It was delicious – panko crusted chunks of chicken thighs tossed in a sweet and sticky honey soy sauce. As I am typing this, I am wondering if I can find an excuse to make that for dinner tonight instead of the tacos I’m supposed to be taking pictures of.
If you need an appetizer that is special but OH SO EASY and versatile, baked brie with Jezebel sauce is perfect and has a little Southern flair! | Recipe from Chattavore.com
Thing about it, though…one of the kids wanted his chicken unsauced. And this kid, according to his mom, is not a picky eater. He just. doesn’t. like. sauce. What is that? Like, I cannot even begin to wrap my head around this concept. No sauce? Does not compute. I can remember dipping my chicken McNuggets into ketchup as a babe then later becoming 100% obsessed with creamy honey mustard and finding new things I could dip into it.
If you need an appetizer that is special but OH SO EASY and versatile, baked brie with Jezebel sauce is perfect and has a little Southern flair! | Recipe from Chattavore.com
This is why I have grown to love brie. Baked brie is the perfect vehicle for sauce…it goes just as well with sweet sauces as it does with savory. Need an appetizer? If you aren’t sure what to serve, pour some sauce over some baked brie and shazam. There you go. Whatcha gonna dip into it? Who cares!!! Crackers, vegetables, fruits…whatever you want.
If you need an appetizer that is special but OH SO EASY and versatile, baked brie with Jezebel sauce is perfect and has a little Southern flair! | Recipe from Chattavore.com
This baked brie with Jezebel sauce is where it’s at. Have you ever had Jezebel sauce? With pineapple preserves, apple jelly, whole grain mustard, and horseradish, it’s sweet and a little bit tangy, and it’s great in so many applications. Can you imagine dipping fried chicken into this? Or maybe drizzling it on a sandwich (oh, wait, I’ve got that one covered – stay tuned for that later this week)? It’s absolutely fabulous, and served over baked brie it just POPS.

Serve this baked brie with Jezebel sauce the next time you need a great appetizer – you’ll be glad you did!

Shared on Meal Plan Monday on Southern Bite!

If you need an appetizer that is special but OH SO EASY and versatile, baked brie with Jezebel sauce is perfect and has a little Southern flair! | Recipe from Chattavore.com

Recipe Image

Ingredients

    For the Jezebel Sauce
  • 1/2 cup apple jelly
  • 1/2 cup pineapple preserves
  • 1/4 cup whole grain brown mustard
  • 2-4 tablespoons prepared horseradish
    • For the Baked Brie
  • 1 wedge brie cheese
  • 1/2 cup Jezebel sauce
  • 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350º. Place the brie in a small baking pan. Place it in the oven for 8 minutes.
  2. While the brie is baking, whisk together Jezebel sauce ingredients in a medium bowl. Remove the brie from the oven and pour the brie over. Place the walnuts on the side so that they will toast. Place the pan bake into the oven for 7 more minutes.
  3. Remove the brie from the oven and serve immediately with crackers, crostini, vegetables, or fruit. I like to bake this in a dish/pan that is nice enough to serve it in.
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https://chattavore.com/baked-brie-with-jezebel-sauce/

If you need an appetizer that is special but OH SO EASY and versatile, baked brie with Jezebel sauce is perfect and has a little Southern flair! | Recipe from Chattavore.com