When it comes to going to a restaurant, I have one thing I consider: the quality of the blue cheese dressing. Other menu items are helpful, but it starts at the beginning for me. And there are a lot of fancy restaurants that are so far advanced that they’re beyond even offering a blue cheese option, so I go to them less. And at the store, I haven’t really ever found a bottle of the dressing that was much above barely edible. So I generally make my own. And to my surprise, everybody has liked it and several have asked me how to make it, so I’ve added it to my handful of potentially helpful recipes here on the site.
Take one of those small 8 oz. things of the blue cheese crumbles and pout it into a bowl. Add enough milk such that some of the crumbles are still sticking up out of it like a deserted isle somewhere. Then add Mayo (Hellmann’s is the only mayo), and I can’t say for sure how much, but maybe three or four heaping forkfuls, then about half again that amount of sour cream, plop that in there. Then grind fresh pepper generously, probably half a teaspoon, but more than that would be OK. Then the critical ingredient, garlic salt. I use the Lawry’s, in the jar with the green lid, probably a teaspoon. More is better, but you can add too much, so be careful. Mix it up good, and it should be creamy but not too thick. If it’s too thin, the milk will fall through the salad and leave he blue cheese crumbles on the top. I’ve done this many times. Easy on the milk!
It saves OK, and for a few weeks and more. But the blue cheese gets bluer and bluer, and the dressing gets tangy. So for re-use, I usually spoon some out, add just a little milk and a good dose of mayo to thicken, and this dilutes the dressing back more like the beginning. A healthy sprinkle of garlic salt also brings back the original flavor.
Blue cheese dressing is an acquired taste, and in fact this happened to me. One day when we were around 19 or 20 my brother somehow got me to eat some blue cheese on a cracker, and I think I was half awake or something, but I ate it and it grossed me out bad, and it was several years later I finally got over it and ate the dressing on a salad and I was hooked.