French Onion Dip

Do you have a husband that on occasion will bring home some utterly delicious junk food from the grocery store? Well, I do, but mine only brings home salty snack food. I'm still working on getting him to buy all the chocolaty treats though. Anyways, one of those times he brought home a tub of French Onion Dip along with a bag of chips. He was even trying to be "good" and bought the low-fat kind. Calorie wise, it wasn't too bad unless you ate the whole container, but looking at the ingredient list I felt a little nauseous. I get extremely upset when you can't pronounce half of the ingredients in the product. I mean really, is it necessary to add all of this additional junk into it? Yes, I do understand that preservatives are necessary, but there are also a lot of unnecessary additives in convenience food. I'm very passionate about the fact that many of these foods can be simply prepared at home with great results. They do take a little bit longer to make than going to a store and purchasing them, and I know sometimes when in a bind they are convenient, but homemade is always better in my opinion!

I've made french onion dip before by taking sour cream and a Lipton onion soup mix envelope. Still better than the pre-mixed stuff, but after looking over the mix not much healthier. I figured there must be a recipe out there for a homemade French Onion Dip, and I was going to find it. Which is where Foodnetwork.com and Rachael Ray came to the rescue. I'm not the world's biggest Rachael Ray fan, but the dip sounded promising.

After cutting and cooking the onions along with some seasoning, all you have to do is add the onion mixture to the cream cheese and sour cream. That's it, easy enough, right? I had to tweak the original a bit, but not much. The result is a fabulous dip that actually tasted even better after sitting overnight in the refrigerator. This dip makes a lot, but can be halved easily for smaller gatherings. It can be served with chips, but is just as good with cut up vegetables or crostini. It is also a great dip to take along on picnic's or potluck's. This is definitely a new recipe to add to my collection to be made many more times.

French Onion Dip

(Print this Recipe)

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon butter

2 medium onions, quartered lengthwise then very thinly sliced

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 cubes beef bouillon (I used 2 teaspoons of this)

1/4 cup water

1/4 cup beer (or additional water)

black pepper

1 1/2 teaspoons dried thyme

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

2 cups sour cream

8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature

Salt to taste

Directions:

Place a medium skillet over medium to medium high heat and add the extra-virgin olive oil and the butter. Melt butter into oil then add onions and garlic cook 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add bouillon cube to the pan with water and beer (or all water) and cook until it "melts" coating onions, stirring frequently, 3 minutes. Season the onions with pepper, thyme, and Worcestershire sauce. Remove from heat and transfer to a plate to quick-cool a bit.

In a medium bowl, mix together the sour cream and softened cream cheese using a rubber spatula. Stir in the onion mixture until completely combined, add salt if necessary. Chill for a couple of hours before serving.

Adapted from: Rachael Ray