Hidden Valley's 7 New Ranch Flavors, Ranked Worst To Best

It's no secret how much Americans love ranch dressing. And it's clear that we're game for an interesting remix of the classics, given how many innovative new grocery products have hit the market over the last several years. With the rising popularity of sauced-up foods among younger generations, it's also no surprise that Hidden Valley is keeping its iconic ranch fresh by offering new flavor combinations to appeal to a wider audience.

Last year, Hidden Valley launched seven never-before-seen ranch sauce flavors, including Nashville Hot Ranch, Green Goddess Ranch, Hot Honey Ranch, and a Cheez-It crossover ranch dressing, among others. This year, the original ranch brand is back with seven new flavors that include five sauces and two seasoning and recipe mix packets.

Hidden Valley invited The Takeout to taste all seven new flavors; each presented alongside or incorporated into an easy-to-recreate dish to help illustrate the range of the new flavors. Many of the flavors were familiar and comforting, while others were more surprising — or had me wondering why these flavors hadn't been created already. From worst to best, here's how each of the new ranch flavors rank, including ideas on how to serve them and where you can find them to try for yourself.

Let me preface this by saying that there's nothing inherently wrong with the new Garlic Ranch Seasoning mix. As a matter of fact, if you already use Hidden Valley's Original Ranch Seasoning, Salad Dressing and Recipe Mix, this particular version will not be all that unfamiliar to you. Aside from having a shelf-stable ranch dressing mix in your pantry at all times, these seasoning powders can be used in slow-cooker recipes, sprinkled into dips and savory snacks, and so much more.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the major difference between the new Garlic Ranch Seasoning and the Original Ranch Seasoning is more garlic. Whereas the original seasoning has garlic listed as the fifth ingredient in the mix, the new garlic version has it listed as the second ingredient. As a garlic lover myself, I appreciate any grocery product that amps up the garlic flavor without any extra work on my part. But I'm also equipped with plenty of powdered, granulated, dried minced, and fresh garlic to add to just about every recipe. Assuming other garlic lovers have a similar arsenal of seasonings on hand, the new Garlic Ranch Seasoning is a little redundant, especially since the garlic flavor isn't as strong as I'd like, and I will likely be adding more of my own to the mix anyway.

Are you one of those people who orders both ranch and BBQ sauces to double-dip your chicken nuggets in? If so, Hidden Valley's new Sweet BBQ Ranch sauce might be the life-changing sauce that you've been dreaming of. True to its name, the sweeter BBQ sauce flavors are noticeable in this dressing, although it's not overwhelmingly smoky and has no noticeable heat to it. Ranch lovers will appreciate that the creamier sauce takes more of a leading role in this dressing, but BBQ sauce enthusiasts might be a little more picky.

The ingredients list includes many of your typical BBQ sauce essentials, including tomato purée, molasses, and honey. It also has a natural hickory smoke flavor, turmeric, and paprika extract, so it's not lacking in authenticity. But in comparison to the rest of the flavors in the new lineup, the Sweet BBQ Ranch simply didn't woo me. It could very well be a matter of personal preference, but I'm the kind of person who would rather dip my nuggets in ranch or BBQ sauce, but I have no desire to enjoy both at the same time.

Not all of the new Hidden Valley Ranch flavors, including the Sweet BBQ Ranch sauce, will be available at grocery stores everywhere. At the moment, you will only be able to find this flavor at Walmart, as well as on Walmart's website.

Hidden Valley's new Kickin' Cajun Blackened Ranch sauce might be new to the Hidden Valley lineup, but Popeyes fans will know that it's not an entirely new creation. I wouldn't go so far as to say I hoard the Blackened Ranch Dipping Sauce from Popeyes, but I definitely order a handful of extras every time I get chicken to have at the ready. In March, Popeyes also unveiled its own line of retail dipping sauces, which will undoubtedly bring some competition to the sauce aisle.

With that in mind, I tasted Hidden Valley's Kickin' Cajun Blackened Ranch alongside fried chicken strips for a familiar comparison. The Hidden Valley blackened ranch is noticeably thicker and creamier than the Popeyes version. It also has slightly more of an herbal flavor, but fewer spicy and peppery notes in comparison. The Hidden Valley bottle ranks this sauce as a one out of four peppers level of hot, which I'd agree with. It's got the blackened flavors I was expecting, without any of the kickin' heat I was anticipating.

Ultimately, I still prefer the Popeyes version of a blackened ranch sauce over the Hidden Valley version, because it packs a little more heat and cajun seasoning flavor. But if this was what was available, I wouldn't turn it down either. The Kickin' Cajun Blackened Ranch sauce is available exclusively at Kroger grocery stores nationwide.

Come for the extra herbal and lime flavors in your salad, stay for the surprisingly smooth crema-style sauce on your tacos, enjoy the secret weapon in your prize-winning guacamole, and as a condiment for your favorite sandwiches. The lime is what you'll notice first when tasting this particular flavor, followed by the rest of the cilantro-accented herbal notes in the ranch. In fact, the cilantro is so subtle that if you weren't looking for it, you might not notice it's there.

I am not predisposed to taste soap when eating and smelling cilantro, and I don't really think there's such a thing as too much cilantro when it comes to garnishing and seasoning a dish with it. But for those who can't shake the taste of suds, beware: there is actual cilantro in this ranch sauce, not artificial flavoring. Even though it isn't especially powerful to me, it's still one of the main ingredients, and it could stand out to anyone who's particularly sensitive to it.

For all of those lime and cilantro lovers out there, Hidden Valley's Cilantro Lime Ranch is not exclusive to any particular retailer and can be found at grocery stores everywhere. Even though it's not a groundbreaking flavor combination, this is one of those sauces you'll want to have on hand to upgrade meals that need an extra pop of flavor and creaminess.

At the Hidden Valley Ranch tasting I attended, the new Creamy Jalapeño Ranch Seasoning mix was used to season chicken for a plate of nachos and was additionally sprinkled on top of the nachos for even more jalapeño ranch flavor. One of the easiest ways to get my attention is for nachos to enter the chat, and the Creamy Jalapeño Ranch Seasoning did not disappoint once it had the spotlight.

Behind buttermilk, jalapeño chili pepper is the second listed ingredient in this seasoning mix, so you can expect it to be noticeable. I like that you can control how much heat you want to add to a particular dish by sprinkling it on top, and enjoyed the next-level complexity it brings in comparison to the Original Ranch Seasoning mix. I don't often use seasoning mixes, but I consider this one worth stocking up on to make weeknight cooking a little easier and tasty all at the same time. Like the Cilantro Lime Ranch sauce, this seasoning mix is available everywhere and would make for a great meal when paired together.

The new Cracked Pepper Ranch sauce delivers delightful little pops of pepper without the annoyance of chewing on whole peppercorns and isn't quite as thick as the classic ranch dressing, allowing more of those peppery notes to really shine through. While I was prepared to taste the cracked pepper in this ranch dressing, I wasn't prepared for the citrusy flavor that accompanies it. I'm sure I would have enjoyed a black pepper-forward ranch sauce if that's all that it was, but the additional citrus flavor was a welcome surprise that took this particular ranch dressing up a few extra notches.

As a salad dressing, the Cracked Pepper Ranch is an obvious choice, but we were presented with a taste of the dressing drizzled on top of a steak and grains bowl at the Hidden Valley tasting event, which was an equally delicious way to enjoy it. Not only does the dressing allow the citrus and pepper notes to shine, but those seasonings then bring out the flavors of the protein and grains — all while the creamy and herbal cues from the ranch tie it all together.

If you're already a fan of other peppercorn ranch dressings, you'll definitely want to give this flavor a try. It's all the spice you love, taken up a notch. Like the Sweet BBQ Ranch sauce, the Cracked Pepper Ranch is available exclusively at Walmart.

Surely this has been done before, right? As it turns out, it has not — not for Hidden Valley, anyway. And now that Blue Cheese Ranch is officially here, I'm not sure how we made it this long without it. So much time has been wasted mixing these two sauces together to make the perfect combination of zingy, cheesy, creamy, and herbed sauce to dip our Buffalo wings in, but often falling short of that perfect balance I've craved.

The cheesier flavors are instantly noticeable, which delights me as a blue cheese fan. But it's also not overpowering for those who are just as invested in the ranch side of this equation. It's thick and creamy, just like you'd expect from the original Hidden Valley Ranch, but the sauce doesn't mask the bold flavors of spicy Buffalo wings. I'd also be just as happy enjoying this sauce on a salad or as a dip. This might even be the answer to getting people to eat all of that celery on your next crudités platter.

If you want to stock up on Hidden Valley's new Blue Cheese Ranch, you'll need to head to the closest Walmart (or order it online). While you're at it, don't be afraid to let Hidden Valley know how much you like this flavor, because I'm not sure I can go back to the old days of mixing sauces together myself to achieve Buffalo wing transcendence.

As often as possible, I tasted Hidden Valley's new sauce flavors by themselves to get an idea of what the full flavor profile was before tasting the dish created with the sauces. When tasting the seasoning mix flavors, it was a little more difficult to judge the mixes on their own since they were cooked into the dish in advance. I took a small taste of each of the powdered mixes by themselves to give myself an idea of what flavors each mix should impart to the dish, then tasted the accompanying dishes.

While I based part of my rankings on how much I personally liked each new flavor offering, I also took into consideration how well the flavor represented what it was described as, and looked at the ingredients to see if the featured flavors were actually used in the products. I took into consideration how innovative each flavor was, what the competition offered, and how realistic each new ranch flavor might be for everyday cooking and snacking. After tasting all of the dishes that were created using Hidden Valley's new ranch flavors, the plates I kept coming back to for another bite and wanted to try to replicate at home, were the clearest winners.