Onion and Bacon Dip

Yummmmmmmmy! With football season in full swing, I have been enjoying taking ideas for tailgating food and making recipes my own. This past Saturday, Miami played Savannah State...a 7pm game, so it gave me the whole morning to get my stuff done (including a needed gym workout!). I had been wanting to have some sort of dip that would go good with kettle chips (I love the extra crunch) and veggies (we had an abundance of carrots and celery) and I decided onion dip would be perfect! My mom use to make it a lot when I was younger, and she always used the handy Lipton mix, but I wanted to make it from scratch. My dad has really taught me that those mixes can be easily done with spices and such.

This would be my first time ever making an onion dip without the mix so I googled it to see what I would need. The first recipe I came across was from Alton Brown of Food Network; Onion Dip and the easiness and reviews is why I picked this one. I did make a few changes that I really feel added to my own tastes and likes.

The ingredient list was basic and simple, plus I had everything on hand (except the white ground pepper which I just substituted based off my tastes).

The original recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups of diced onion (I used sweet although the recipe does NOT specify), 1 1/2 cups of Sour Cream, 3/4 cups mayonnaise, 1/4 tsp of salt (for the onions), olive oil (to cook the onions, which I did not use), 1/4 tsp of garlic powder and white ground pepper and another 1/2 tsp of salt.

This was my first alteration. I LOVE bacon and I had some extra available. I took three slices of Publix center cut bacon and fried them in the frying pan. The perfect part of this is that while the bacon was cooking, I was able to chop the onions and get them ready!

I actually don't mind chopping onions. When I first started learning to cook with my dad, my jobs always involved chopping the veggies we would need and gathering all the ingredients and washing the dishes. One medium to large size sweet onion is plenty to get 1 1/2 cups. I like to dice them in sections. It makes it easier and allows me to take breaks to check on the bacon. :)

During this time, I had flipped the bacon and after about 10 minutes of cooking, turned off the burner and left the pan (I like crispy bacon!). Once I was done chopping the onions, I removed the bacon from the pan and placed the slices on a paper towel to drain. This is why I did not use olive oil, because I decided to use the bacon grease left in the pan to cook the onions. It worked great!

 I placed the onions in the pan, added 1/4 tsp of kosher salt, turned the stove top back on (medium-high heat) and began measuring out the sour cream and mayo. I mixed the onions periodically and waited for them to caramelize.

When the onions resemble a slightly brown color and have softened, they are ready! It takes about 20 minutes. I placed the pan on another burner that was cold, so that the onions could cool. At this point I took the bacon and chopped it up and added it to the onions and mixed it together. While the onions cooled with the bacon, I chopped up the carrots and celery.

 

I took the onion/bacon mixture after it had cooled (about 5 minutes) and mixed it with the sour cream and mayo that I already had placed in a Tupperware container (I find this to be the easiest way when I plan on taking the dip immediately for travel, in this case; a tailgate) and began folding in the mixture. I added the 1/2 tsp of salt and 1/4 tsp of garlic powder. As I said earlier, I didn't have white ground pepper and had originally planned to just use black ground pepper but saw we had chipotle Chile powder and decided that I wanted to add a spicy and smoky flavor to compliment the bacon. So, I added a 1/4 tsp of the chipotle Chile powder and mixed everything together. I stuck it in the fridge until we were ready to pack up and go, about an hour and a half. I tasted it before we left and OMG! The bacon and onion with the creaminess of the sour cream and mayo and then the slight kick and smokiness from the chipotle powder was a perfect combination!

 

My tailgating group felt the same! Everyone gave rave reviews and loved it! This is a recipe I will definitely be making again! Tomorrow I'll tell you about my sub sandwich creation and the sweet and spicy mayo I made! If you end up trying this dip, what changes did you make or did you follow the original recipe?

 

Also, for those who worry about calories and such, I created this as a recipe in MyFitnessPal and here is the breakdown-

 

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups diced sweet onion

1 1/2 cups regular Publix Sour Cream

3/4 cups Hellman's mayo

1/4 tsp and 1/2 tsp of David's Kosher Salt

1/4 tsp of McCormick's Garlic Powder

1/4 tsp of McCormick's Chipotle Chile Powder

3 slices of Publix Naturally Hickory Smoked Center Cut Bacon

 

I approximated that based off the ingredients, this recipe makes about 4 cups of dip. Although it seems small, I did a serving as a half cup (which if using chips and veggies to dip is actually a lot and makes you more mindful of not overeating)

 

Based off a 1/2 cup serving, this recipe contains-- 247 calories, 23.2g of fat, 40mg of Cholesterol, 473.8mg of Sodium, 5.6g of carbs, 2.1g of sugar and 2.4g of protein. For me this recipe is good because I watch my sugar content and my carbs. Even if I had two servings (which I don't think I would need based off how many carrot sticks you could easily eat with 1/2 cup of dip), it would be less than 5g of sugar! Granted, I'm not thrilled about the sodium, but that has to do with the bacon and salt.

 

Hope you enjoy!