Blue Cheese Dressing

I Love Blue Cheese Dressing

This is my go to homemade blue cheese dressing for Buffalo wings, parties, and anything else that deserves a better dip.

I could have called this website Blue Cheese Dressing (and Buffalo Wings Too) and it would have been accurate.

In Buffalo, it's rare to hear someone call it blue cheese dressing. We always call it blue cheese. If someone asks if you want blue cheese with your wings, they're talking about the dressing, not the cheese itself. From this point on, I'll mostly call it blue cheese too.

I really do love blue cheese.

It’s amazing and mandatory with wings. It’s also great on pizza, french fries, salads, and almost anything else.

My wife has even caught me eating it straight from the jar with a spoon (or my finger) more than once. Yes, it’s embarrassing, but I can’t help myself.

In fact, it’s enough of a problem that I’ve actually created a rule: I only make what will be eaten with that meal, or I send the leftovers home with guests.

How it Started

Blue cheese was always around when I was growing up, but honestly, I didn’t appreciate it nearly enough as a kid. I liked it with wings, but that was about it. At home, there was usually a bottle of store-bought in the fridge for salads, but it never tasted as good as the little round tubs that came with delivery wings.

But the stuff at Grandma’s house was always the best. Once I learned how she made it, there was no going back.

I’m not sure how old I was when Grandma Fran taught me how to make it. Thirteen would be my best guess. There were no written measurements and no recipe card.

It was blue cheese, equal parts sour cream and mayo, some garlic powder, enough white vinegar to make it look right, plus a bit of sugar to balance it. Then she would taste it and adjust from there.

Honestly, I never bothered measuring anything until I finally started writing down recipes properly for use on this website and in my upcoming book, The Perfect Buffalo Wing.

Building the Recipe

When I started creating structured recipes, I wanted to turn my homemade blue cheese dressing from something I made by feel into something people could actually follow.

So I gathered all the supplies: ingredients, measuring cups and spoons, bowls, spatulas, a legal pad, and a pen. Then I made a batch the way I normally would, but this time I measured each ingredient before adding it and wrote it all down.

The first challenge was immediately obvious. Unlike cream cheese or butter, blue cheese is sold in all kinds of package sizes with no standard. That doesn’t matter when I’m making it by feel. I can look at the cheese and think, “That’s not much blue cheese, so I’ll use less of everything else.” But that instinct doesn’t translate into a written recipe, so “one package” means nothing.

For my first batch, I bought a wedge-shaped plastic container of blue cheese I already knew was good quality. It was a 5.5-ounce package, and once I measured everything out, I realized the recipe needed to be based on the right proportion and what tasted right, not whatever size package happened to be on the shelf.

My first measured version was good, but not quite right. It had too much vinegar, and the blue cheese flavor wasn’t strong enough. I added more blue cheese and it improved right away. A bit of sugar balanced the acidity.

After that, over the course of a few months, I made more batches, adjusting the ingredients each time and luring test subjects to my house with promises of Buffalo wings.

The final result is heavy on blue cheese, light on vinegar and garlic, with just a little sugar.

Lessons Learned

Great Blue Cheese Makes Great Blue Cheese

Use high-quality blue cheese whenever possible. The best you can find (or afford) is usually the right choice. Blue cheese comes in all shapes, sizes, and qualities, so one variety may work perfectly for this recipe while another may be so strong or so mild that you need to adjust the amount.

Soft, flavorful blue cheese tends to work best, while some dry and crumbly varieties can be weak and leave you with a disappointing result. Some blue cheeses are simply unsuitable and, no matter how much you add, the dressing will still fall short of what is required to honor your perfect Buffalo wings.

Beware: there are some very bad blue cheeses out there, more like moldy cardboard than cheese, and there is no fixing blue cheese once it has been contaminated by bad blue cheese.

Chunk Size Matters

If the chunks are too small, the dressing becomes smooth and boring. If they’re too large, they won’t scoop well onto the wings.

Aim for small to medium chunks. I find crushing the blue cheese with a fork until the largest pieces are somewhere between the size of a pea and a pistachio works well.

Garlic: Fresh or Powdered?

I believe fresh garlic gives the best flavor, but garlic powder works just fine. If substituting, use about 1 teaspoon of garlic powder for each fresh clove.

This recipe keeps the garlic balanced for most people, but if you’re a garlic lover, don’t be afraid to push it further.

It Gets Better With Time

Blue cheese is good right away, better after a couple of hours, and best after a night in the fridge.

Mayo Matters

Use a good mayonnaise. Cheap mayo can sometimes contain a flavor that drags the whole recipe down. I usually use a popular national brand found almost everywhere, and it works great.

I’ve made my own a couple of times, and it made the blue cheese even better. However, it takes extra work, and over time, homemade mayo doesn’t stay emulsified as well as store bought so you may notice some separation after a couple of days.

I’ve never actually experienced that myself, since blue cheese never lasts that long in my house.

Bold Variations

Personally, I love a strong blue cheese dressing, and I rarely make it exactly the same way twice. I generally use more garlic, skip the sugar or swap it for maple syrup or honey, replace white vinegar with balsamic or red wine vinegar, add bacon crumbles, or mix different blue cheeses.

If it’s just you, have fun with it and get a little crazy. Just no Ranch dressing. Being from Buffalo, that’s not okay.

Why This Version Won

After months of experimenting and luring people over with promises of Buffalo wings, this is the version that won. It’s thick and easy to pile onto a wing with one scoop. It uses plenty of blue cheese, which is what it should taste like, without so much garlic or vinegar that it puts people off.

Overall, people have loved this version.