The magic ingredient of French onion dip is caramelized onions. For reasons that only the universe knows, they are just an amazing gift from heaven. They are precisely why French onion soup and the Southern German dish of Käsespätzle are just sooooo incredibly tasty.
Most French onion dip recipes require mayonnaise or sour cream, this one doesn’t use either. I am a strong advocate for cream cheese as it makes for a creamier and cheesier result.
Whether you enjoy this dip with veggie sticks or some (homemade) baguette bread, it will hopefully bring you tremendous joy eating it, no matter what.
Healthy twist on the French onion dip: substitute the cream cheese with Greek yoghurt, though make sure to use a full-fat version otherwise the dip is a bit too liquid. It’s still a dip not soup!
At a glance
- Servings: 4
- Calories per serving: 276 kcal
- Preparation time: 5 min
- Cooking time: 5 min
- Total time: 10 min
Ingredients
- 2 medium-sized yellow or white onions
- 2 tablespoons of butter
- 1 tablespoon of sugar
- 1 tablespoon of ground garlic
- ½ teaspoon of thyme
- ½ teaspoon of pepper
- ½ teaspoon of salt
- 10 ounces (280 grams) of cream cheese
How to prepare French onion dip
The secret to making this dip even better is thyme… excuse I mistyped this. In this case, the secret is time though this recipe also includes thyme. So the longer you can give this dip in the fridge the better the flavors of the onion will blossom as they can fully infuse the cream cheese.
Nevertheless, let’s start at the start. This means cutting the onions into large-ish chunks. Then melt the butter in a pan at medium heat and cook the onions for 4 minutes. Make sure to stir continuously until they are fully glazed. Then drizzle the sugar, garlic powder, thyme, pepper and salt over the onions and stir for another minute.
Next, turn off the heat and add the cream cheese to the pan. Most recipes for French onion dip, will tell you at this point to let the onions cool down first before getting to the next step. I don’t as I strongly believe you get a superior result by blending the warm onions with the cream cheese right away and chill it later.
While the cream cheese slightly melts, combine it with the onion/spice mix. By mixing it in the warm pan rather than a cold bowl or after the onions cooled down, I find you get a better taste result and the rest heat softens the cream cheese and thus makes it easier to mix with the chunky onion and to blend the liquids that rendered out of the onion bits.
