When I Dip, You Dip, We Dip

The most crowd-pleasing dips I've made so far. Plus, a mango-coconut recipe worth remembering.

Smoky Eggplant Dip by Andy Baraghani

The Super Bowl came and went, and I’m proud to announce I did nothing for it.  There was not a scrap, morsel, or crumb that was put out in honor of this sporting event.  I wasn’t protesting it or anything (although, if any organization deserves a variety of protests, it’s the NFL).  Nope, I was just lazy.  A few sticks of Pocky got me through the telecast, and that was A-OK.

But… but… as I was lying there on the sofa, I thought about the dips I could have made.   “What a great idea for NBD Fancy,” I thought.  And then that was swiftly followed by “You idiot, why didn’t you write a dip guide for the Super Bowl?”  Fifteen entries into this substack experiment, and I was already failing on the timeliness front.  Disaster.

Although, not really. We always need dips, even when there’s no Super Bowl.  Let’s not act like once the big game is done, we put the dips away for the year. Heck, we’re still in the throes of award season, which, like Daylight Savings Time, seems to get longer each year. That means there’s still the Oscars coming up — arguably the final major dip event until the summer BBQ season — so I haven’t totally missed the boat here.  However, a real eater knows that there’s no bad occasion to make a dip.  Who cares if it’s a championship game or an incredibly self-involved tribute to cinema?  We don’t need Nielsen events to dictate our dip-consumption patterns.  We just need to be hungry.

So, what do I look for in a dip?  It can be hard to say. Dips abut against other food categories in weird ways: sauces, gratins, condiments.  Even soups.  They seem to have a certain stiffness and heft that separates them from the pack, but at the same time, there are a wide variety of thin, runny (and delicious) salsas that one would never kick out of the dip tent.  Conversely, a cream of spinach or even some mashed potatoes have a dip-like viscosity, but they are undeniably sides.  The more you try to define the laws of dip, the slippier they become.  Is gravy a dip?  No.  But queso?  Yes.  And aioli?  Maybe?  And what about creaminess?  It seems like a defining feature, but then why are cream of corn and corn chowder not dips but corn salsa is?

I’ve landed on only two fairly solid rules that allow a dip to be dip.  First, there must be some sort of assembly.  A single ingredient (avocado, mayo, sour cream, e.g.) risks coming off like a mash or a condiment, not really dip.  And yes, I realize mayo is not inherently a single ingredient, but for dip discussions, it kind of is. Second, the texture must be loose enough for a chip to be dragged through it easily.  Beyond that, the only real marker may simply be tradition, convention, and branding.  The serving vessel helps too, to be honest.

All this musing is to say, when compiling these recipes, I may leave some off since they read more like sauces, condiments, or spreads than dips.  The philosophical debate will have to rage on.

Here are some of my favorite dips, perfect for Super Bowls, award shows, and aimless gatherings alike.

Maybe it’s the humble nature of dips or my own laziness, but for some reason I have basically zero photos of the dips I’ve made over the years.  Apologies for this text-heavy list.

Kentucky Beer Cheese by Chef John

Beer cheese feels most at home when paired with sports, especially football, but why not throw it into a refined spread and watch the high-low magic unfold?  For the uninitiated, beer cheese is the unholy union of beer and cheddar, combining to make a deeply weird and highly addictive dip. There are umpteen variations, with some recipes calling for a stovetop preparation — sort of like an Appalachian queso. My favorite take keeps things simple with just some shredded cheddar and stale beer (yes, stale) whipped together in a food processor.  Throw some garlic and mustard powder in there, and you have a dip that every cracker will pine for.  I won’t bother describing the taste.  Just keep an open mind and give it a whirl.

Creamy Sesame Turmeric Dip by Alison Roman

My favorite bagel order — the one which I inhale nearly every week — is sesame with cream cheese.  This dip captures that flavor perfectly, what with its combo of cream cheese, sour cream, and tahini.  A sesame turmeric olive oil adds some color and sexiness to the proceedings, but for me, it’s all about the cream cheese and tahini combo.  This may actually be my favorite dip of all time, which is shocking, considering some of the other “bangers” on this list.  Protip:  if you make this dip, don’t be shy with the salt.  Cream cheese, sour cream, and tahini can take a lot of salt, and you’ll want to be generous here.  It’s actually quite delicious under-seasoned, oddly enough, but it’s absolutely undeniable when the salting gets into the “zone.”  Just season and taste and season and taste until it’s there. You’ll know you’ve arrived when you cannot stop going in for tastes.  Use a clean spoon, of course.

Sour Cream and Onion Dip by Lipton’s

This is a classic for a reason, and it’s probably the easiest dip on the list: combine sour cream and Lipton’s onion soup mix and serve.  Sure, we could make this from scratch, and it would be absolutely delicious, but the ratio of flavor to convenience is unparalleled. I’m not above it!

Hummus by Ina Garten

Can’t have a list of dips without hummus, but whose recipe to recommend?  The correct answer is probably something from the acclaimed restaurant Zahav, but full transparency here: I used an Ina Garten recipe in 2010 and haven’t strayed since.  (Memo to self:  test hummus recipes and compare on NBD Fancy).  I’m not saying that Ina’s hummus is the best or most authentic, but its ratio of lemon juice to tahini and chickpeas is excellent.  I often add olive oil and water to smooth it out and fluff it up, which may or may not be culturally authentic, and before I add the chickpeas, I cream the tahini and garlic together because the internet told me to in 2010.  I’m not sure the latter technique improves anything, but it feels helpful?  Looking forward to revisiting this category, especially now that I have the cookbook Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Shelf Love, which features a recipe for “Creamy Dreamy Hummus.”  Until then, I can only speak from my experience, which has been Ina Garten all the way.

Smoky Eggplant Dip by Andy Baraghani

Hailing from his cookbook The Cook You Want To Be: Everyday Recipes to Impress, Andy Baraghani brings us a baba ganoush-adjacent dip that is smoky, creamy, and absolutely gorgeous on the table. I made this for New Year’s Eve 2022, and I can assure you it was gone long before the ball dropped.

Guacamole, Green Pea and Otherwise

Guacamole is the undisputed queen of avocado dips, and I’ve rarely encountered any recipe for it that’s even just mediocre.  Barring disaster, guacamole just… works.  My first foray was with Alton Brown’s version, which is easy and great, and most recently I tried Pati Jinich’s guacamole ahumado (smoky guacamole) from Treasures of the Mexican Table.  The latter may just be my new go-to guac recipe.  But I also want to shed some light on Melissa Clark’s controversial Green Pea Guacamole, adapted from a recipe by Jean-Georges Vongerichten.  This simple dip created a minor cultural maelstrom that inspired Barack Obama himself to weigh in (he was not in favor).  I’m not here to resurrect the debate, which includes complex perspectives about appropriation and culinary tradition.  I am, however, here to report that I’ve made it, and it was delicious. For those looking to switch up their guacamole game, do not fear the pea.

Chipotle Peanut Salsa & Street Style Salsa by Pati Jinich

Speaking of Pati Jinich, I’m fairly obsessed with her book Treasures of the Mexican Table, which has a substantial chapter on “Salsa, Pickles, and Guacamoles.” Selecting just one salsa for this list felt cruel and unnecessary, so here are two recs:  first, her street style salsa is an excellent recipe for the red salsa found in seemingly every Mexican restaurant across the U.S..  For something a bit more unique, try Pati’s chipotle peanut salsa.  Spicy, nutty, and tangy, it will expand your idea of what salsas can be.  Do note, as with all of her recipes, you’ll need to add more salt than what’s on the page for the flavors to truly pop.

Vegan Cashew Queso by Josef Centeno

I adore queso, and when I saw this recipe from the cookbook Amá, I couldn’t resist giving it a whirl.  Did it taste like real queso?  Of course not.  But it hit many of the same notes, and it was absolutely delicious on its own merits.  The name unfortunately does the dip a disservice. Had Centeno simply billed this creation as a creamy Tex-Mex cashew dip, the dish probably could avoid the unnecessary comparisons to its dairy namesake. Either way, this concoction is a great option for vegans and non-vegans alike.

Smoked Mackerel and Horseradish Pate

Several years ago, I found a thin Irish cookbook by the register at TJ Max and decided to get it on a whim (victim once again to the impulse-buy trap).  Thank God I did because that book (a.k.a. The Complete Irish Pub Cookbook) led me to this recipe.  Horseradish, lemon, parsley, cream cheese and smoked mackerel come together to make a delightfully refined and smoky accompaniment (which admittedly straddles the line between dip and spread).  I sub smoked trout for the mackerel as it’s easier to find and doesn’t have annoying bones.  For lovers of fish-oriented dips (I’m obsessed with taramasalata, for instance), this is an easy and flavorful choice.

Tonnato by Joshua McFadden

Is it a sauce?  Is it a dressing? Is it a dip?  For the purposes of this article, I’ll go with dip.  A blend of tuna, mayonnaise, and lemon (among other things), tonnato is best described by the headline of a 2017 Bon Appetit article:  “Can’t. Stop. Putting. Tonnato. On. Everything.”  My favorite version comes from Joshua McFadden in his book, Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables.  Tonnato is used as more of a sauce with his recipes, but I’ve had great success pouring the briny, tangy mixture into a bowl and surrounding it with pita chips. Maybe not great for tuna haters, but impossibly addictive for everyone else.

Tzatziki / Savory Coeur à la Crème by Ina Garten

These two dips are in no way related except that a) these versions hail from Ina Garten, and b) they are both dairy-forward.  The tzatziki is nothing but delicious things:  yogurt, dill, cucumbers, garlic, etc.  There’s some multi-hour draining involved, but Garten has an “easy” variation that fast-forwards the process via Greek yogurt and cucumber squeezing.

The savory Coeur à la crème requires even more prep (read: an overnight refrigeration), but the result is a deeply decadent, heart-shaped cream cheese centerpiece perfect for salty crackers.  There are Coeur à la crème molds out in the world — the epitome of a single-use gadgets — but I am happy just to drain my Coeur with a regular sieve, even if it makes the final product look like the Cinerama dome in Hollywood.

Spinach Artichoke Dip / Seven Layer Dip / Queso / Clam Dip / Crab Dip

Obsessed with all these dips, and some of them I’ve even made, but honestly, I don’t have any go-to recipes for them just yet.  This is my way of holding space for these genre stalwarts (and also to avoid the inevitable comment, “How could you leave off spinach artichoke dip?!?”).  I’ll explore and circle back in a future newsletter with my findings.

Mango Coconut Sauce/Dip by Darlene Schmidt

Years ago, there was a website called about.com which offered okay-ish articles about food and dining. Occasionally, a gem would emerge from the about.com morass, and this recipe is one of them.  Sweet, savory, tropical, creamy – this Thai-inspired dip is absolutely wonderful.  Just know that the recipe calls for fish sauce, whose assertive funk may scare off certain palettes. For everyone else, it’s bliss.

Darlene Schmidt has since updated this dip on The Spruce Eats, adding garlic and chili sauce to the list of ingredients. I haven’t tried her revision, but in memory of the now defunct about.com version, here’s the original Mango Coconut Sauce/Dip, courtesy of the dusty binder where I store printed-out Internet recipes:

Ingredients:

1 ripe mango

4 tbsp thick coconut milk (not the “light” kind)

1 heaping tsp palm or brown sugar

1 tbsp fish sauce (if vegetarian or vegan, sub ¼ tsp salt)

1 tbsp lime juice

¼ to ½ dried crushed chili

The Steps:

1.      Scoop out the mango and place in a food processor, blender, or chopper.

a.     I prefer a food processor for this dip.

b.     I use a mango pitter, which some say is excessive, but I say is lovely.

2.     Add all the other ingredients. Process to create a delicious mango sauce. Tip: avoid over-processing, or you’ll end up with a mango drink (!)

a.     This is why a food processor > blender

3.     Do a taste-test. Depending on the ripeness/sweetness of your mango, you may have to and a little more sugar. What you want is a balance of sweet, salty, and spicy, with just a touch of sour.

4.     Serve as a dip with your choice of appetizers.

What are your favorite dips?  Do you have go-to recipes for any of the above dishes?