Name: Skinny Blue Cheese Dressing, 20 Calories a Tablespoon!
Prep time: 15 min
Total time: 75 min
Ingredients: 1 cup The BEST Skinny Ranch Dressing (3 ingredients); ⅓ cup blue cheese, (crumbled); 1 tablespoon blue cheese, (crumbled); ⅓ cup fat-free cottage cheese; 2 tablespoons vinegar, white wine, champagne or your favorite white vinegar; 1 teaspoon fresh garlic clove, (minced); A little black pepper

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One of the most decadent dressing out there is blue cheese. One problem though…It’s one of the most fattening dressings around. For example, a 2 tablespoon serving of Bob’s Big Boy Blue Cheese Dressing has 140 calories and 15 grams of fat. Wow! I have good news, my Skinny Blue Cheese Dressing has just 40 calories, 2.5 grams of fat and 1 Blue WW Freestyle SmartPoints for the same 2 tablespoons and 1 Green WW SmartPoints. To make it skinny, I’m starting with my skinny ranch dressing for the base instead of mayonnaise and adding just a small amount of crumbled blue cheese. I’m actually using some fat-free cottage cheese to replace some of the blue cheese normally added. When you see the little chunks, you think it’s blue cheese. Sneaky right? If you’re a blue cheese dressing fan, I know you’re going to LOVE this slimmed down version!

Skinny Blue Cheese Dressing, 20 Calories a Tablespoon! | Skinny Kitchen

Why You'll Love My Skinny Blue Cheese Dressing

Want all the rich, tangy flavor of blue cheese dressing without the heavy calorie count? You'll absolutely fall in love with Skinny Blue Cheese Dressing (20 Calories a Tablespoon!) because it’s a revelation for healthy eating. Imagine drizzling that creamy, bold, and delightfully pungent blue cheese goodness over your crisp salads, juicy buffalo chicken, or fresh veggie sticks, all while knowing you're making a smart choice at just 20 calories per tablespoon! This dressing is a game-changer for anyone looking to enjoy robust flavors and satisfying textures without derailing their dietary goals. It’s perfect for elevating everyday meals into a gourmet experience, proving that a healthier lifestyle doesn't mean sacrificing taste. Get ready to savor every indulgent, guilt-free bite!

Ingredients For Skinny Blue Cheese Dressing

The BEST Skinny Ranch Dressing (3 ingredients): This forms the essential creamy foundation of our blue cheese dressing. By starting with a specially formulated "skinny" ranch, we immediately establish a lower calorie and fat profile, while ensuring a smooth, desirable texture. This particular ranch, made with just three ingredients, provides a clean, neutral base that allows the distinctive, pungent notes of the blue cheese to truly shine through without competition from an overly complex base dressing. It's the strategic choice that delivers a luscious mouthfeel and body while maintaining the "skinny" promise.

Blue Cheese (⅓ cup, crumbled): This is the star of the show, providing the undeniable, bold, and tangy flavor that defines blue cheese dressing. Using a generous ⅓ cup of crumbled blue cheese ensures a significant presence of its characteristic pungent and salty notes, which are essential for an authentic taste. The crumbling allows for easy dispersion throughout the dressing, ensuring every spoonful delivers that signature blue cheese kick. This quantity is designed to infuse the dressing with robust flavor without being overwhelmingly strong.

Blue Cheese (1 tablespoon, crumbled): While the ⅓ cup provides the foundational blue cheese flavor throughout the dressing, this additional tablespoon of crumbled blue cheese serves a slightly different, yet crucial, purpose. When stirred in at the end or used as a garnish, these larger crumbs offer distinct pockets of intense blue cheese flavor and texture. They provide a delightful "pop" of pungency and a more substantial bite, adding a textural element and enhancing the overall blue cheese experience, ensuring that unmistakable taste is present in every spoonful.

Fat-Free Cottage Cheese: This is a brilliant secret ingredient for achieving creaminess and body in a "skinny" dressing without resorting to high-fat ingredients. Fat-free cottage cheese, when blended, becomes incredibly smooth and contributes a mild, tangy richness. It significantly boosts the protein content of the dressing and helps to create that thick, luxurious consistency associated with traditional blue cheese dressings, all while keeping the calorie count remarkably low. It acts as a superb binder and texture enhancer.

Vinegar (White Wine, Champagne, or Your Favorite White Vinegar): The addition of 2 tablespoons of vinegar is vital for balancing the richness of the creamy base and the intensity of the blue cheese. White wine, champagne, or a good quality white vinegar provides a crisp, bright acidity that cuts through the savory flavors, adding a necessary tang and liveliness to the dressing. This acidic component also helps to "wake up" the other ingredients and ensures the dressing is well-rounded and refreshing, rather than heavy.

Fresh Garlic Clove (1 teaspoon, minced): Fresh garlic brings a subtle yet essential pungent warmth and aromatic depth to the dressing. When minced, a teaspoon of fresh garlic infuses the entire mixture with its characteristic savory notes, enhancing the overall complexity without overpowering the star blue cheese. It adds a layer of background flavor that elevates the dressing from simple to sophisticated.

A Little Black Pepper: A touch of freshly ground black pepper is added not just for a mild bite, but also to further enhance and round out the flavors of the dressing.¹ Its subtle spiciness provides a pleasant warmth and helps to "brighten" the taste, complementing the tang of the vinegar and the pungency of the blue cheese. It's a classic seasoning that adds a final touch of perfection to the blend.

How to Make Skinny Blue Cheese Dressing

Step 1: Prepare Your Skinny Ranch Dressing Base

The essential first step in making this fantastic Skinny Blue Cheese Dressing is to prepare your BEST Skinny Ranch Dressing (3 ingredients). This specific ranch recipe forms the smooth, creamy, and wonderfully light foundation for your blue cheese creation. To ensure accuracy and the perfect base, please click on the provided link to get the full recipe for the ranch dressing and follow its instructions carefully. Once you've prepared the necessary amount of ranch for this blue cheese recipe, you'll likely have some leftover. Be sure to refrigerate any remaining ranch dressing for another use – it's a versatile staple that's great to have on hand for other salads, dips, or spreads throughout the week. For this particular recipe, the ranch dressing does not need to be chilled before you begin mixing the blue cheese dressing.

Step 2: Combining All the Bold Flavors

Once your skinny ranch base is ready, it's time to bring in the distinctive ingredients that give this dressing its iconic blue cheese character. Grab a medium-sized mixing bowl. To this bowl, add 1 cup of your prepared skinny ranch dressing. Now, carefully measure and add the other components:

⅓ cup of crumbled blue cheese – this provides the foundational, rich blue cheese flavor throughout the dressing.
1 tablespoon of additional crumbled blue cheese – this extra bit ensures distinct pockets of intense flavor and a satisfying texture.
⅓ cup of fat-free cottage cheese – this is a secret weapon for achieving incredible creaminess and body without the extra calories.
2 tablespoons of vinegar (choose white wine, champagne, or your favorite white vinegar) – this adds a crucial bright tang that balances the richness.
1 teaspoon of minced fresh garlic clove – for a subtle yet essential aromatic depth.
Finally, add a little black pepper to taste, enhancing the overall flavor profile.

Once all the ingredients are in the bowl, take a whisk. Whisk everything together thoroughly until all the components are completely blended. Continue whisking until you achieve a smooth, cohesive dressing with the blue cheese crumbles visibly, yet evenly, distributed. You want to ensure the cottage cheese is fully incorporated for that luxurious texture.

Step 3: Chilling for Optimal Flavor and Consistency

While your Skinny Blue Cheese Dressing smells amazing already, a crucial final step for achieving the best possible taste and texture is refrigeration. Refrigerate your freshly made dressing for at least 1 hour before using it. This chilling period serves two vital purposes:

Thickening: Cooling allows the dressing to thicken slightly, achieving that desirable, luscious consistency that clings perfectly to salads, vegetables, and other foods.
Flavor Development: More importantly, chilling gives all the bold flavors – the pungent blue cheese, the tangy vinegar, the fresh garlic, and the creamy ranch – a chance to fully meld and deepen. This integration results in a more harmonious, well-rounded, and utterly delicious final product that tastes even better than when first mixed.

Storage and Versatility: Your homemade Skinny Blue Cheese Dressing is an excellent make-ahead option! When stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator, it will keep beautifully for up to a week. This means you can prepare it in advance for parties, meal prep, or simply to have a healthy, flavorful dressing ready whenever you need it.

Helpful Tips About this Recipe

Makes 1½ cups total (24 tablespoons)

Food Facts
Blue cheese dressing is sometimes referred to as Roquefort dressing, but Roquefort is a particular kind of blue cheese made of sheep’s milk. Regular blue cheese, a crumbly cheese that also has blue veins of mold, is made from cow’s milk. The cheese is mixed with creamy ingredients such as mayonnaise, sour cream, buttermilk, milk or yogurt and often with vinegar and some spices.

The process for making America’s ‘Maytag Blue Cheese’ was developed by the Iowa State U. in 1941 (it is a process for making blue cheese with milk). Production was begun by Fred Maytag II (of dishwasher fame) when he heard about the new process. Maytag blue is also aged in specially designed caves.

WW Freestyle SmartPoints 1-Blue
WW SmartPoints 1-Green
WW POINTS PLUS 1

SKINNY FACTS: for 2 tablespoons Skinny Blue Cheese Dressing
40 calories, 2.5g fat, 1g sat. fat, 6mg chol, 3g carbs, 2g prot., 0g fiber, 220mg sodium, 1g sugar