French centre-back pairing William Gallas and Marcel Desailly sunk the dogged resistance of relegation-haunted Sunderland with three second-half goals.
Gallas struck a volley early in the second half to put Chelsea ahead and fellow central defender Desailly doubled the scoreline in the 83rd minute. That then left Dutch striker Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink to add a third two minutes from time to seal a convincing victory.
But it was the performance of his two central defenders that stood out in Ranieri's mind.
"Gallas and Desailly did their jobs well at the back but it was part of our system to push them forward on occasions," he said.
"It was hard to break down Sunderland because they defended very well.
"We had to try something different and that is what we did.
"I don't take too much credit for this. Good managers are made by good players and we have plenty of those."
The result puts Sunderland back in the bottom three but manager Howard Wilkinson refused to be downbeat.
Wilkinson says he can take positives from the game and believes his team are showing signs of improvement.
"I am happier with this performance than the one against Liverpool a couple of weeks ago.
"If we are going to improve our situation our away form is one of the areas where we have to improve and that is a very big positive to take from this game.
"We've more to take into the next game after the performance we put in here."