Football's back, which means somebody is about to ask you to bring a dip. This is the one we'd bring. It's the recipe from the first episode of Buy the Dip, our new show where my co-founder Cameron Whyte and I make game-day dips with a few grocery-store brands we actually buy, and then, because we can't help ourselves, put them on pizza. Watch the episode on YouTube.
Buffalo chicken dip is about as close to a sure thing as party food gets. Cream cheese, chicken, hot sauce, cheese, heat until bubbling. It's hard to mess up and easy to make forgettable. Two moves keep ours off the forgettable list: dill pickle hummus where most recipes use ranch, and a crushed buffalo chip topping that brings the crunch this dip is usually missing.
Why dill hummus instead of ranch
Ranch is the default, and there's nothing wrong with ranch. The trouble is what it's stacked on. Ranch on top of cream cheese, sour cream, and two kinds of shredded cheese gets heavy fast, and by the third chip it's all richness and no lift.
We use Hummus Goodness Big Dill Hummus instead. You still get that cool, herby, ranch-adjacent thing, but the pickle brings acid, and acid cuts through fat instead of piling on more of it. The dip tastes brighter, and you keep going back to it, which is the entire job of a dip.
Start with soft cream cheese
The one rule we'll be strict about: let the cream cheese come to room temperature before you start. Cold cream cheese fights you the whole way, and it doesn't blend smoothly with everything else, so you end up with little cold pockets in an otherwise creamy dip. Pull it out of the fridge before you go deal with the chicken and it'll be ready when you are.
Speaking of the chicken, a store rotisserie bird is the move. Ours came from Costco, where Cameron will happily walk every single aisle whether he needs anything or not, which is why he's not supposed to go unsupervised. Shred it while it's still a little warm and it pulls apart in about five minutes.
We did not agree on everything. I said the garlic powder should go in with the base, not at the end, and Cameron's official response was, "It's not a science, Andrew. It's an art." The recipe below puts the garlic powder in with the base. I'm just saying.
The crunchy top
Most buffalo chicken dip is soft all the way through. Ours gets a topping of crushed WILDE Buffalo Protein Chips, and the logic is about as simple as it gets: we're making buffalo chicken dip, so why wouldn't you top it with buffalo chicken chips?
Timing matters here. The chips go on for the last few minutes of baking, not the whole time. You want them warmed through and a little crisper than they came out of the bag, not browned. Crush them roughly with your hands, big pieces and small, so the top has some texture to it.
Buffalo Chicken Dip with Dill Hummus and a Crunchy Buffalo Chip Top
Creamy, tangy, and loaded with buffalo flavor. Dill pickle hummus gives it a ranch-like freshness without the weight, and crushed buffalo protein chips add the salty crunch most versions are missing.
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups shredded rotisserie chicken
- 7 oz Tillamook Original Cream Cheese Spread, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup Hummus Goodness Big Dill Hummus
- 1/2 cup Frank's RedHot Buffalo Sauce
- 3/4 cup shredded sharp cheddar, divided
- 1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1 to 1 1/2 oz WILDE Buffalo Protein Chips, roughly crushed
- Sliced scallions, for finishing
Steps
- Heat the oven to 375°F.
- In a large bowl, mix the cream cheese, dill hummus, buffalo sauce, sour cream, garlic powder, 1/2 cup of the cheddar, and all of the Monterey Jack until combined.
- Fold in the chicken.
- Spread everything into an 8-inch baking dish and top with the remaining 1/4 cup cheddar.
- Bake 18 to 20 minutes, until it's hot and bubbling around the edges.
- Scatter the crushed chips over the top and bake another 3 to 4 minutes, just until they're warmed through and lightly crisped, not browned.
- Finish with scallions and serve hot with tortilla chips, celery, carrots, or toasted bread.
Then put it on the pizza
Here's where this stops being a normal dip post. Once the dip was done, we spooned it onto a slice of Okie Dokie Artichokie, our spinach and artichoke pizza. We already like chicken on the Okie Dokie, and the buffalo brings a little extra heat to all that creamy garlic sauce and spinach. Dip isn't just for the crust. It's for the whole slice.
If you're making both, bake the dip first. When it comes out, turn the oven up to the temperature on the pizza box and give it a real preheat, well past the beep, before the pizza goes in. The dip holds just fine on the counter while that happens, and the pizza comes out crisp instead of steamed.
Why it's called Buy the Dip
It's a markets joke. Buy low, sell high, take advantage when something's at its lowest. In football terms, it's backing the teams nobody expects much from this year and waiting for them to surprise some people. We also just really like dip.
For the record, when we asked which active NFL player this dip is, the first answer was Josh Allen, because it's Buffalo. Then somebody said Jahmyr Gibbs, because very spicy. Both answers stand.
Next on Buy the Dip: a loaded taco dip, then a bacon jalapeño popper dip. Subscribe on YouTube so you catch them, and tell us in the comments which dip we should make after that.
Grab the pizza. The dip's on you.
