Caramelized Onion Dip
Lemon, sour cream, cream cheese, Spanish onion, and chives.
This recipe's a snap -- while the onions take some time to caramelize, there's no real work for you to do. Just get them started in the oil, then turn the heat down low, patiently wait, and...
Stirring the onions to coat them in the oil.
It takes a long time for the liquid to cook off.
But once it does, the onions begin to take on color. See those nice brown bits? Keep going until those brown bits are threaded through the entire pot full of onions.
The rest of the ingredients -- sour cream, cream cheese, chives, lemon zest, and juice -- can all be measured and prepped while the onions cook.
Once the onions are ready, you add them to a food processor and layer in the rest of the ingredients.
Lemon zest!
Lemon juice.
A quick spin in the food processor and this is what it looks like. This is the moment to taste the dip and make sure the salt and acidity are to your liking.
I scraped the dip into a bowl.
Then folded in the chives.
Doesn't a shell-shaped dish just scream "Super Bowl"?
Author Notes: This recipe is very simple and so delicious. You will never go back to pre-made onion dip after you have this. I prefer to eat this with potato chips, but would be great with veggies as well. It is amazing how much sweetness is created through the natural caramelization of the onions. - ADRIENE —ADRIENE
Food52 Review: Patience pays off here -- take your time caramelizing the onions. First, the onions will give off a lakeful of liquid. Let it boil off slowly, and by the time the onions begin to caramelize -- it took ours at least an hour -- they'll be as soft as pudding and deeply concentrated in flavor. Their sweetness infuses the entire dip, and while the rest of the ingredients are the classic onion dip foundation -- sour cream, cream cheese, and chives -- this one will be better than any you've had before. Note: We halved the recipe and had plenty for 6-8 (not ravenous) dip eaters. - A&M —The Editors
Serves: 6-8
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5
pounds Spanish onions
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8
ounces cream cheese
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16
ounces sour cream
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zest and juice of 1 lemon
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1
bunch chives
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4
tablespoons olive oil
-
salt & pepper
- Peel and cut the onions in a small dice. Get a large pot on the stove with the olive oil and throw in the diced onions. Cook on medium to low heat until they are caramelized (a nice golden brown color). This should take somewhere between 45 minutes to an hour. Cool to room temperature.
- Put the cooked onions, cream cheese, sour cream, lemon juice and zest (if your lemon is large, you may want to start with half of each and add to taste) in a food processor. Blend until combined well. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.
- Mince the chives, fold the chives into the dip and sprinkle some on top to garnish.
- Your Best Dip Contest Finalist!
More Great Recipes:
Cheese|Appetizer|Snack|Gluten-Free|Make Ahead|Serves a Crowd|Vegetarian
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I counteracted the sweetness by adding about 2 to 3 tsp of soy sauce and about 1 to 2 tsp of Worcestershire sauce to the caramelized onions and then letting them cook an additional 5 minutes. The saltiness and umami balanced the sweetness well.
SAVED! If yours ends up too sweet, here's how to save it.
Put back in blender. Add and blend:
a garlic clove, crushed
all the green onions that you already folded in (oops)
additional lemon juice, salt and pepper
Warning: if you use yellow onions as I just did, this dip will be really, really sweet. I should've used Spanish Onions as the author indicated.
Wow I wish I had read the Food 52 Review comments. Yes it makes enough for 16-20 and you really have to keep cooking down the onions to get the liquid off. I have just made onion dip soup and I only used half the cooked onions :-( Please please update the recipe itself to reflect the quantity and that you need to cook the onions down more, "golden brown" is too early, should be a darker brown.
I made this for a New Year's Eve cocktail party and was terribly disappointed. The dip was cloyingly sweet, otherwise not very tasty, and the consistency was thick, not creamy. I doctored it a bit by adding in more chives, some sour cream, salt & pepper to half of the dip. The rest I tossed. Echo everyone's comments that the original recipe makes enough for a huge crowd.
I made this dip for the first time today. It will more than suffice for two evenings' no she's with cocktails.
It's criminally delicious!!!
I used 5 lbs of onions and began caramelizing them by keeping them in one covered pot on a very low flame til they were utterly limp. I removed the cover and raised the flame to cook off the liquid the onions released. As they began to take on color, I raised the heat til the onions turned mahogany. All in all, the process took probably over a hour, but you'll get no complaints out of me!!!!!!
This was nice, if not outstanding. I halved the recipe and still had A LOT of it so watch out.
I am an onion dip addict from birth, so I was intrigued by the recipe creator's comment that I would never buy onion dip again. I loved making this dip—loved how the onions cooked down into a pudding-like substance, just like she said. And I found no problems with the measurements at all, though it did make an insane amount of dip. But it's not accurate to compare this to other pre-made dips because this is sweet and those are savory. My eyes see onion dip, but my mouth tastes sweetness and it doesn't work for me, no matter how many chipfuls I eat. Glad I tried it, though. It's got me thinking about ways to work caramelized onions into other presentations.
Great recipe! It makes a ton of dip though. I don't think that seven of us are going to get through all of this.
This recipe was great! It was an absolute hit, and so easy to make! A great app for football parties, pic nics, etc. Thank you for sharing.
Loved this recipe. I used the full five pounds of onions, and was glad I did. Since I had a lot of time to cook them but didn't want to be bothered to chop, I just sliced them thickly and caramelized them for about two hours. I blended about 2/3 of the onions with the other ingredients, and then stirred in the other third for a textural contrast.
I made this for the Super Bowl. The crowd went ((((wild))))! They loved it! I tinkered with it a bit, after reading the comments. I cut the onions. I added pink Himalayan salt and Red Rooster hot sauce. I blended it -- just enough to remove major lumps. Oh! I used a Meyers lemon. This dip was fabulous!
Will have to whip some up quick today before the Super Bowl...thank you for posting the recipes!
I made this for the cookbook party, total hit. By request I'll be making it again for an open house next weekend. I also did not use all of the onions 3-4 lbs. would be enough. Loved the lemon in there.
I loved it! I used two large onions and about two cloves of garlic. Very delish. Having it tomorrow for pre party for the Trueblood premiere! Thanks!
One tip that has worked well for me to caramelize onions faster is to place a piece of parchment paper directly on top of onions as they cook. Read this in the newer Gourmet cookbook by Ruth Reichl. Not sure why it works but it's something I will always do now when caramelizing onions.
Great tip, I never heard of that!
Just made this for company and it's delish! I was planning on making the full amount but then used only as many onions as would fit in my largest pan, which I think was about three pounds. At that point I decided not to even measure the cream cheese (I used a whole 200 gram container) and sour cream, just added and tasted until it tasted right. It is definitely addictive! Next time I will take dymnyno's suggestion and not blend it, I like the pieces of onion too. Although I can't say I will make this often (nearly two hours for a dip is a little longer than I can usually spare for something that will be gobbled up so quickly) I will definitely make it again!
While this dip was given a positive response, I have to agree that the ratio of onions used could be tweaked. Were I to make this again, I would use half the onions originally called for: the dip was, IMO, far too sweet from all the onions using 5#, and they made the dip too thick.
While I realize that water content of onions can vary greatly, and the degree to which cooks utilizing this recipe fully extract this water in the caramelization process may likewise vary, I am reminded of a wonderful onion tart recipe I've used for years that calls for 3# of onions and an hour to cook them down (rather like risotto, adding liquid -- white wine -- just as the liquid is cooked off from the onions). The result of 3# of onions being more than enough for a tart should have given me pause, but I was multi-tasking and just went with it.
Another problem with 5# of onions is that it's simply too much for one large pot. The diced onions made a layer that was 5-6" deep initially, so the time for proper caramelization was actually closer to 2 hours. If you're caramelizing that many onions, you'd need two pots to more effectively caramelize the onions (or you would need to do them in batches).
A good idea, with caveats. Not sure this was worth my time, but it was fun to try out!
I originally halved the recipe, but it was too sweet, so I used the full amount of cream cheese and added a little salt and grated garlic as suggested. That balanced the sweetness perfectly. I also used a blender as my food processor is broken, but that was a mistake. It is way too perfectly smooth. It would have been better if I didn't process it at all and just mixed it. Still, my husband is eating it up.
Delicious! I bit sweeter than I expected, but the salt tip worked well. I love my wife's food processor...!
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