Recipe modified by You Want Me to Cook? on February 6, 2011
For a
commentary-free and printer-friendly version of it, please click here.
Recipe originally published
by Allrecipes daily e-zine on Friday, July 18, 2008.
I rarely can justify making
dips. All that is going to happen is
that I’ll eat dip and chips for a meal one night; therefore, the small “intelligent part” of my brain
says that this would be a bad idea. However,
this day was Super Bowl Sunday, and for the first time in a long time, we were
having company. I lined up a long list
of things I had been waiting to try, hoping at least half would come out good
enough to eat.
My finished product:
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Picture published with recipe:
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None of the reader-uploaded
pictures were very good. This one was
the clearest I could find. Obviously, I
didn’t want to take a picture of just a big tub of dip, so I scooped out some
to show the thickness of the dip. For
the most part, they look pretty similar although mine does look a little
chunkier.
Assessment:
for more details about what my
ratings mean, go to Gretchen’s Rating System
Mess: EH –
There isn’t a lot to do, but I find peeling and pitting avocados to be a messy
prospect. Even that wouldn’t have been
enough, but I did have to pull out the food processor, so that bumped it up a
little.
Start-to-Finish Time: LESS THAN 30 MINUTES – most of it is spent
peeling and pitting the avocados, but you do have to blend the cream part and
then mix it.
Prep Work: SLIGHT
BLOOD LOSS – I hate peeling avocados. I hate it even more than doing peppers and
herbs. However, I bought a friendly
little avocado peeler which makes all the difference in the world. Seriously, I’ve been eating tons of avocados
since I bought it!
Ease of Recipe: THE BASICS – I can hear you already…
WHAT?!?!?! This rating – for a dip? Ordinarily, something as simple as a mix and
go dip I would say let the kids make.
However, you are dealing with a food processor and I still remember the
first time I tackled an avocado.
Overall: SORRY HONEY, NO LEFTOVERS – We all enjoyed the
dip during the Super Bowl, and I used the leftovers for everything from a dip to
a condiment. It was fantastic and I hid
the leftovers in my favorite hiding place (which I will not reveal here since
my husband still has not found it – I’ve got several). FYI – I did eat some as a meal one
night. See, my “smart side” doesn’t
always win the battle over my “idiot side” which is predominately bigger and
louder and quite a bit more fun.
Recipe Information:
Time estimates are from
the original publisher of the recipe, not the length of time it took me to
create it. Look for my comments
below. Nutritional Information is based
on original recipe. Any changes I make
to reduce the caloric, fat, cholesterol or sodium content are not reflected in
the Nutritional Information.
Prep/Ready Time: 15 minutes
Servings: 4 cups / 32 servings
Nutritional Information
- Calories 71
- Total Fat 6.5g
- Cholesterol 12mg
- Sodium 127mg
- Total Carbohydrate 2.2g
- Fiber 0.6g
- Protein 1.4g
I’ll admit I didn’t time myself
on this recipe. I was making food for my
husband and I and our guests, so I got a little lazy. If it took me more than 30 minutes, I’d be
shocked. It definitely gives you a lot
of dip, so one serving will be great for a larger group of people. Of course, the serving size is 2 tablespoons
of dip per person. Thus, I think that getting 32 servings out of this recipe may be
pushing it.
The nutritional information doesn’t
seem too bad, until you remember a serving is only 2 tablespoons. I used light sour cream to help as much as I
possibly could to reduce the fat content.
I was shocked that there was only 12mg of cholesterol, until I realized
that the avocados provide “good fat”. I
was satisfied with that.
Ingredients:
Changes denoted by red text
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| © You Want Me to Cook? Creamy Avocado Ranch Dip Ingredients |
1 package (8 ounce) Neufchatel
cheese
1 package (1 ounce) ranch
dressing mix
¾ teaspoon smoky chipotle hot sauce
¼ teaspoon garlic salt
¼ teaspoon celery salt
2 avocados, peeled and pitted
Ingredient Notes:
Light Sour Cream – I tend to purchase Daisy brand Sour cream because it is less expensive than
most and it has a reduced-fat version. The reduced-fat sour cream has a
third less calories, fat and cholesterol. However, after doing a little
research, Breakstones has a Fat Free Sour Cream that has
HALF the calories, a teeny-weeny amount of fat (so much for “fat free”) and
less than a quarter of the cholesterol. I may begin investing in
Breakstones from here on out.
Neufachatel Cheese – according to Taste of Home Neufchatel cheese
is a soft unripened cheese that originates in France. Apparently what you find in the grocery store
(assuming you shop in the United States) is similar to cream cheese and made
from pasteurized milk and cream. It is
lower in calories and has more moisture than cream cheese. You can substitute regular cream cheese if
you need to, especially for dips and spreads.
Hot Sauce – I used a smoky chipotle brand even thought the original recipe
called for regular hot sauce. I was at
the mercy of my husband for this one. He’s
in charge of hot sauce.
Equipment Needed:
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| © You Want Me to Cook? Creamy Avocado Ranch Dip Equipment |
Food processor
Large bowl
Fork
Plastic spatula
Plastic wrap
Equipment Notes:
Avocado Peeler – so a friend came to me and said she was
having a Pampered Chef party. I agreed
to buy something and this peeler caught my eye.
Normally, I think of most gadgets as unnecessary, but I figured it was
worth a try, since I always massacre my avocados trying to scoop them out of
the shell. This thing is FANTASTIC! It can’t cut my finger, yet it glides easily
through the tough shell of the avocado and pops the seed right out. I love it!
Food Processor – While I was reading through some of the
comments, one of the contributors mentioned that she used a blender to blend
the dairy. If that’s what you’ve got, go
ahead and use it. As an aside, she said
she “flash blended” it. I have no idea
what that means, and a quick Google search yielded nothing but a lot of
technical information about Flash software programming techniques. I’m going to assume she meant pulsed it, but
you know what assume stands for, right?
Directions:
(1) In a food processor, mix the sour cream,
Neufchatel cheese, ranch dressing mix, hot sauce, garlic salt, and celery salt.
Even though the recipe doesn’t
state this, I broke up the Neufchatel into pieces instead of dumping the entire
brick into my food processor. It just
made sense.
(2) In a large bowl, mash the avocados, and
mix in the sour cream mixture until well blended.
Make sure your bowl is large enough
to fit 4 cups of dip and gives you room to stir it.
(3) Cover with plastic wrap, and chill until
serving.
We all enjoyed the dip, but
honestly, I think I may have enjoyed it more than everyone else. It was rich and creamy with a little kick to
it. One of the comments stated that you
could get the same store-bought, but I totally disagree. Trust me, I’ve tried all the creamy avocado
dips that are out there and this one blew them all out of the water.
I served this with potato chips,
pita chips and lime tortilla chips – all which tasted delicious. I also used it as a condiment on my turkey
sandwich. I LOVE avocado on my turkey,
but unfortunately I can’t eat the avocado fast enough to keep it from turning
brown. This was a great way to eat my
avocado and it also lasted longer in the fridge.
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