Winner, Winner, Dip for Dinner
Give classic canned goods a whole new purpose.
By Alyse Whitney
Photos by Nick Torres
Prop Styling by Ruth Kim
Food Styling by Caroline Hwang
While everyone else was eating ramen packets and
macaroni and cheese in college, I was making dip. Yes, dip. I’ve been a Dip Queen for decades—long before writing my first cookbook, Big Dip Energy. Dip has always been my go-to for any time of day or night. But when I was out on my own for the first time, I found it a particularly fun and easy way to eat more vegetables—i.e., transform sad, dry, forgotten carrot sticks—and have something that was equally satisfying to my taste buds and my bank account.
Some nights it was “semi-homemade” ranch (with the Hidden Valley Ranch powder packet but adding sour cream to the mayonnaise and milk it calls for) with veggies and chicken nuggets. Or a store-bought hummus zhuzhed up with a drizzle of olive oil, salt, pepper, and fresh herbs, with roasted veggies and rotisserie chicken wrapped in pita as dippers. Sometimes Taco Tuesday was guacamole-centric—more about using tortilla chips to scoop up everything that would normally get tucked into a taco shell. Dip could be anything I wanted it to be, and although it’s been more than a decade since I graduated from college, my dip lifestyle has stayed strong. If anything, it’s only become a bigger part of the way I eat and my core identity.
One of my favorite categories of dip is the kind you make for yourself for dipner on the couch (while watching Only Murders in the Building), like the three recipes here. These dips rely on pantry staples—a can of chickpeas, the humble OG tinned fish: tuna, a bag of frozen peaches (or canned peaches in syrup for an even quicker shortcut). Which makes them something you can literally reach for on a random Wednesday. Dips up!
Recipes excerpted from Big Dip Energy: 88 Parties in a Bowl for Snacking, Dinner, Dessert, and Beyond! by Alyse Whitney. Copyright © 2024 by Alyse Whitney. Reprinted by permission of William Morrow Cookbooks, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Serves 4-6
Tuna Melt Dip
My favorite diner sandwich is a tuna melt, which elevates a can of tuna into something spectacular, so I transformed it into a dip! It has a mixture of American and cheddar cheese and a smidge of cream cheese to make it creamier than regular tuna salad. And in spite of my hatred of pickles (I know, I’m a monster—I just really dislike cucumbers), I added them to this dip, and they bring an acidity and brightness that nothing else could. If you love pickles, try using whole spears as dillicous dippers!
Ingredients
1 5-oz. can tuna, preferably whole chunk in oil, drained
¼ cup mayonnaise
2 oz. cream cheese, softened at room temperature
¼ lb. thinly sliced deli cheddar cheese, torn into pieces
¼ lb. thinly sliced deli American cheese, torn into pieces
2 Tbsp. aggressively rough chopped pickles, plus more for garnish
3 Tbsp. minced red onion, plus more for garnish
¼ tsp. kosher salt
10 cranks black pepper
2 Tbsp. finely chopped fresh parsley
4 slices rye bread, toasted and cut into sticks, for dipping
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350°F.
In a medium bowl, combine tuna, mayonnaise, cream cheese, half of both cheeses, the pickles, red onion, salt, and pepper.
Mix gently to combine. Spread the mixture evenly in a 1-quart baking dish and top with the remaining cheeses.
Bake for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown and bubbly. Top with the parsley, and more onion and pickles, if you’d like.
Serve with toasted rye sticks or store-bought pita, bagel, or potato chips, or crudités, such as carrots, sweet peppers, cucumbers, or celery.
Keeps up to 4 days in the fridge and can be eaten cold, as a schmear on a bagel, or broiled atop bread for a tuna melt toast. Or mix it with some cooked elbow noodles for a version of tuna mac salad.
Serves 4-6
Green Goddess Hummus
When a salad and a dip love each other very much…Green Goddess Hummus is born. It’s herby, garlicky, easy, and vegan. It is, however, not “cheezy.” A lot of GG recipes (not Gilmore Girls, but should this be called Gilmore Goddess Hummus?) use nutritional yeast, but I opted for the flavor enhancer MSG, which has been unfairly demonized for decades. Just a tiny bit of MSG packs a punch that brings out the umami.
Ingredients
1 15-oz. can chickpeas, drained
4 garlic cloves
¼ cup fresh cilantro leaves
¼ cup fresh basil leaves
¼ cup chives, cut into approx. 2-inch pieces
¼ cup fresh parsley leaves
2 scallions, roots trimmed, cut into approx. 2-inch pieces
Juice of 1 lemon (about 3 tablespoons)
¼ cup olive oil
1 ¼ tsp. kosher salt, plus more as needed
2 Tbsp. tahini
1 ½ tsp. honey, plus more as needed
⅛ tsp. MSG
2 Tbsp. red wine vinegar, plus more as needed
Instructions
I would never call something a “dump dip,” but…this kind of is. Dump everything into a food processor, let it whirl until smooth, and taste it. You may want another splash of vinegar, a smidge of honey, or another pinch of salt. Follow your palate.
Serve with pita or bagel chips or crudités, such as carrots, cucumbers, celery, broccoli, cauliflower, or sweet peppers.
Keeps up to 10 days in an airtight container in the fridge.
Serves 4-6
Peaches ’n’ Cream Protein Dip
Please sing the following to the tune of the opening line of Kelly Clarkson’s “A Moment Like This”: What if I told you this is made of cottage cheese? Would you believe me, would you eat it? That’s right—this dipceptively protein-packed dip (14 grams per ½ cup) is certified fresh for breakfast. Sweetened with a quick peach situation (simmering frozen peaches with sugar and lemon juice until jammy), this is a peaches ’n’ dream come true. You could eat this before or after a workout, substitute it for protein bites as a snackternoon treat, or bring it to a party—it’s dealer’s choice.
Ingredients
1 16-oz. bag of frozen peaches (also works with a can of peaches, no extra sugar needed)
⅓ cup granulated sugar
Juice of ½ lemon (about 1 ½ tablespoons)
16 oz. whole milk cottage cheese, preferably Good Culture
¼ cup powdered sugar, optional
Drizzle of olive oil, optional
Pinch of kosher salt, optional
Instructions
In a small saucepan, combine frozen peaches, sugar, lemon juice, and ½ cup water. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce to a low simmer and cook for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the peaches have softened and almost melted into a jammy consistency. Transfer to a medium bowl and let cool at room temperature for at least 20 minutes.
Place the cottage cheese in the bowl of a small food processor or blender, and run the motor until the cheese is completely smooth, whipped, and ultra creamy. Pour in the jammy peach situation and blend again until smooth.
Now you have two options: Add the powdered sugar if you’re going for a sweet dip, or add a pinch of kosher salt and drizzle of olive oil if you want it more savory-sweet. Or split the dipference and try it with a little sugar and a little salt!
Serve with Crumble Crackers (see recipe below) or store-bought pita or bagel chips, pretzels, graham crackers, shortbread cookies, saltines, or your favorite buttery cracker.
Keeps up to 10 days in an airtight container in the fridge.
Makes 32 crackers
Crumble Crackers
This is a crumble-topped pie with a buttery crust, but in cracker form. The pie “filling” is the dips that you choose to dip these into. Somehow these also taste a little like the best, warm-spiced granola I’ve had, thanks to the oats inside. So maybe try crumbling them over some yogurt for breakfast?
Ingredients
1 sleeve buttery crackers, such as Ritz (about 32 crackers)
½ cup (1 stick) salted butter, cold, cut into cubes
½ cup packed light brown sugar
½ cup flour
½ cup old-fashioned (rolled) oats
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
½ tsp. ground ginger
½ tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
¼ tsp. kosher salt
1 egg, whisked with 2 tsp. water
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Arrange the crackers in an even single layer—so they are touching but not piled on top of each other— on the prepared sheet pan.
In a medium bowl, combine the butter, brown sugar, flour, oats, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, vanilla, and salt. Mash with a fork until the butter is in pea-size pieces.
Using your fingers, pinch a bit of the mixture to compact it slightly into a little crumble blob, and dollop or sprinkle it on each cracker; it doesn’t have to be perfect.
Bake for 12-14 minutes, until golden brown. It’s nice to eat them when they’re still warm, but they are equally wonderful at room temperature.
Store leftovers in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days, with pieces of parchment or wax paper separating each layer of crackers to protect them from…crumbling.
