Buffalo Chickens Don’t Have Wings, They Have Dip And It’s DELICIOUS! July 7, 2010

THE Buffalo Chicken Dip

In 2009, we were on a boat in Antigua. We frequently tried to amuse our crew and the crew on other boats around us so we decided to hold a dock party for someone’s birthday (I believe it was our chef), which became sort of like a pot luck; every boat was to  bring a dish that either their chef, or someone else made, bought from the store or came in a Dorito’s bag.

What we didn’t know is that our own stewardess Megan had been holding out on us; she had a secret that no one knew and didn’t find out until this fateful evening: BUFFALO CHICKEN DIP!

At about 6pm, when the party was about to commence (and no one was showing up), Megan tended to our hungry, waiting bellies and brought out some chips and a piping hot orange dip. Sure, it looked a little like vomit, but we believed her when she said it was a Buffalo Chicken Dip and it was absolutely delicious.

We all got up and took a bite, exclaimed how amazing it was, demanded the recipe immediately–despite our lack of pen or paper and buffalo-dip-fogged-minds. After that, the crew on our boat remained within a four-foot gravitational pull of the dip, finishing off all but a 3×3″ square that was left when other crew decided to show up.

After that party, Megan was tortured  into making, not one, but also an EXTRA dip everytime we had a shin-dig. Even if there was some left over, we would save it and eat it on those hung-over days, re-heating it–or not–depended how desperate we were. We didn’t care, we just needed our fix!  Now whenever I can, I bring this dip. It’s so simple to make with only 4-5 ingredients. You can take it to any party and heat it up in their oven. I do recommend heating before eating, just because it tastes so much better warm–for the first bite at least.

So, staying true to my recent contradiction of this blog: here is the most unhealthy, but most delicious dip recipe known to man. I’ll try and keep it as healthy as possible.

INGREDIENTS –  Serves a party of 20+…or a small family for many days.

• 2 blocks of Light Cream Cheese (keep these at room temperature, or warmer before making.
• A bottle of Light Ranch Dressing
• A bottle of Cholula Hot Sauce– original flavor–When I was looking online for a picture of this dip* (since I forgot to take one), I noticed people were using Franks Red Hot instead, but I think Cholula is the perfect spice and flavor. Incase you’re unfamiliar with the yummy cholula (that I use in everything) it’s a one with the wood cap.
• 2-3 Large chicken Breasts

1. The quickest and easiest way to cook the chicken for this dish is to boil it. You don’t need a big pot for this, and just enough water to cover the chicken. This doesn’t take very long and if you absolutely have to, you can do it from frozen.
2. In a bowl, or right in the dish you would like to use (it has to be able to be put in the oven remember)– mix the bottle of Ranch and Cholula together.
3. Add the cream cheese– hopefully it’s room temperature or warmer, otherwise you’ll have a hard time mixing it.
4. You can mix it by hand with a spoon or fork, but my husband–clever as he is, always pointing out the obvious– used a hand mixer which worked marvelously.
5. Once the chicken is done– aka. no pink in the middle– let it cool a little and then take a fork to it, shredding it into little tiny pieces.
6. Add the chicken to the bowl and mix it up with the sauce
7. Put it in your dish of choice (I use a 8x8x3″ baking dish) if you didn’t skip the bowl step all together and use your dish to start with.
8. When you’re ready, bake it in the oven until it gets a little brown on top and it’s warm all the way through.

You can serve this with tortilla chips,veggies, or even with shredded cheese on top (I haven’t tried that yet). My brother in-law (who’s a chef) suggested that it would be good on a sandwich, which brought on a discussion about this: we thought it would be good if you made it on a chicken sandwich, or on a veggie sandwich with or without the chicken already in the dip.

Let me know if you try this!

Sprinkle it with love and enjoy!

Xo

Kristi

ps. the recipe page I got the picture from is buffalo-chicken-dip-lrg.png