Spinach Artichoke Dip (11)
Creamy dips make excellent party appetizers. They can be served in bowls with tortilla chips nearby, so guests can dip the chips into the bowls. Another serving suggestion is to spread the dip on toasted slices of French baguettes, garnished with small dices of red and yellow bell peppers or with halves of cherry tomatoes and parsley leaves. These nice mini-sandwiches will make your guests love your cooking talent and want to get invited by you more often. Yes, sometimes a simple spinach artichoke dip can do what other charms can't.
Ingredients:
- 10 ounces artichoke hearts, drained, chopped
- 10 ounces frozen spinach, thawed, chopped and very well drained
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise (you can replace it with low-fat mayonnaise)
- 1/2 cup sour cream or yogurt
- 1 cup Mozzarella cheese
- 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
- 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 4 small packs (4 ounces) of cream cheese
- Salt, pepper
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Serves: 8
How to cook the creamy spinach artichoke dip:
Mix all ingredients in a bowl and blend them until they become a paste. Beware that sometimes canned artichokes can have a strange flavor, so it’s always best to rinse them well and drain them before use, especially if you’re not going to bake the dip. Even if you do, you can still rinse the artichoke hearts, as it won’t take you long anyway. Pour the blend in a casserole, cover it and cook it in the oven (preheated at 350 F) for 25-30 minutes. Serve it with carrot or celery sticks, or with any other dipping such as toast, chips or sliced pita bread. You can refrigerate the dip and serve it the next day.
Using fresh spinach in your recipes will increase a little bit the preparation time, but the food will taste slightly better than if you used frozen or canned spinach. Fresh spinach can be cooked in many ways, but for making a dip, the best are steaming or microwaving.
This is a dip recipe based on fresh baby spinach and canned artichoke hearts:
Ingredients:
- 3 lbs fresh baby spinach leaves
- 1 can artichoke hearts, chopped
- 3 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
- 1 average onion, diced
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 tablespoon Worcester sauce
- 1 cup cottage cheese
- 1/2 cup sour cream (low-fat is also fine, if you’re concerned about your heart health)
- 1/4 cup flour Cayenne pepper and salt according to taste
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Serves: 6
Cooking procedure:
Wash the spinach very well, then steam it or microwave it for maximum 2 minutes. Dry it very well and chop it. In a skillet, put the olive oil, add the onion and the garlic, sauté for 2-3 minutes, then add the flour. Cook it for one more minute stirring continuously. Let it stand for a few minutes, then add the Worcester sauce, the sour cream, the cottage cheese, the spinach and the artichokes. Cook it on low temperature, stirring gently, until the cheese melts completely into the mix. This will take about 8-10 minutes or maybe less, so don’t leave the pan unattended. Add salt and pepper, pour everything in a bowl and serve the dip hot with toast bread or tortilla chips and with salsa.
Crockpot appetizers like this warm artichoke spinach dip can be successfully used for festive dinners and parties, because they are very tasty and easy to prepare. Serving dips at parties is also easy, because all you need to do is provide your guests some nice dipping "materials" such as tortilla chips or raw veggies sticks and you're done.
Ingredients:
- 8 ounces frozen spinach, thawed, drained and cut small
- 8 ounces artichoke hearts (preferably canned; marinated or not, at your choice), chopped small
- 8 ounces cream cheese
- 1/2 cup heavy cream (many thanks to Ryan for noticing I missed this from the list)
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 small onion, grated
- 1 garlic clove, peeled and grated or minced very small
- 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- Salt and pepper as needed
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 2.5 - 3 hours
Serves: 10
Cooking procedure:
Put the cream cheese together with the cream in the slow cooker, set it on low and let the cheese slowly melt. This would probably take between one and two hours. Cut the cream cheese in cubes before putting it into the slow cooker, so you can speed up the melting a little bit. After the cheese has melted, add the other ingredients, stir gently, then cover the food and let it cook for one more hour, with the slow cooker set on low. When finished, pour it into a nice bowl, spread some grated Parmesan cheese or breadcrumbs on top of it and serve it hot.
Use raw vegetables, toast bread, sliced and toasted pita bread or salty crackers for dipping. Optionally, you can serve the dip with diced tomatoes or with fresh parsley leaves cut very small. If yuo want, you can replace the parsley with minced dill, but make sure not to use too much, because dill has a very strong taste which can cover other tastes, so the food won't be what you expected anymore.
Bread bowls are a creative way of serving food in. They are suitable for soups, the most popular being the white beans soup in bread bowl, but they can also be filled with a dip: spinach artichokes dip would do as well as any other dip you might think to cook.
Ingredients:
- 10 oz. frozen spinach, thawed and drained, chopped
- 1 can of marinated artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
- 1/2 cup fresh red bell pepper, diced small
- 1/2 cup canned sweet corn
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1 tablespoon of dried basil
- 2 tablespoons mayonnaise (regular or light, according to preferences)
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1 round sourdough or 1 loaf round peasant bread
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Serves: 8
How to cook the spinach artichoke dip in bread bowl:
Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl. You can use a blender or just stir the mixture well with a fork. Make sure that the spinach is very well drained of water, otherwise the dip will be too fluid and it will be absorbed into the bread. Cut the top of the round bread like a lid, then remove as much of the inside as you can. Take care not to make holes in the bread, or you’ll ruin your dish. Before pouring the dip into the bread bowl, you could refrigerate it for one hour. If you forget, that’s not a problem, refrigerate it together with the bowl bread. Serve with toast or with diced peasant bread.
If you’re concerned about healthy, low-fat nutrition, you can replace the sour cream with fat-free yogurt and use light mayo or leave it out. Garlic fans can add 1-2 garlic cloves peeled and minced.
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Going vegan is probably a tough decision for some people. This can be noticed in the way they always seem to miss the tastes they knew from before, thus trying to re-create them in many vegan dishes they cook. This artichoke spinach dip recipe tastes like the normal ones which include at least one kind of cheese, thanks to the smart mix of ingredients and flavors.
Ingredients:
- 16 ounce frozen spinach, thawed, drained and chopped
- 1 jar of marinated artichoke hearts (in normal dips, canned artichokes will do, but in this case, the marinated ones are better because they already come with the flavors of the oils and spices in the marinade)
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 small red onion, diced small
- 2 garlic cloves, minced (can be replaced with garlic powder, but freshly minced garlic is always better)
- Juice from 1/2 lemon
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- Salt and pepper
Dip preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Serves: 6-8
How To Cook It:
Saute the onion and the garlic in olive oil for 2-3 minutes, at low heat, stirring continuously. You can add a little liquid from the marinated artichokes. Then add the artichoke hearts cut in average pieces, together with the lemon juice, salt and pepper and let them cook for 2-3 more minutes, stirring gently. Start adding the spinach little by little, and when you’re done, cover the saucepan and let it cook for 5 more minutes, then add the basil and the oregano.
Serving tips: serve the dip hot, with dippings of your choice such as toasted bread or celery sticks. For festive occasions, you can top the bowl with breadcrumbs or with vegan Parmesan and with cherry tomatoes and black olives cut in halves or in quarters.
People suffering from food allergies or lactose intolerance will find this spinach artichoke dip recipe ideal, because although it doesn’t contain any real cheese, it’s still very tasty and consistent and it makes an excellent starter dish. It's also suitable for parties, when you are not sure your guests aren't allergic to dairy products and you want to be on the safe side with the foods you intend to offer them.
Ingredients:
- 10 ounces spinach, thawed, chopped, well-drained
- 1 can marinated artichoke hearts, chopped but not very small
- 8 ounces tofu cream cheese
- 1 cup vegan Parmesan (if you can find it; if not, try some vegan mozzarella cheese instead)
- 1 tablespoon mayonnaise (check the label so you make sure it doesn’t have any dairy ingredients)
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1 tablespoon dried basil
- Salt and pepper to taste
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 25 minutes
Serves: 8
How to cook it:
Like most dip recipes, this one also implies mixing all ingredients in a large bowl and blending them until you get an even mixture. If you wish, you can use a food processor, but in this case your dip will be creamy. If you still want to feel the artichoke pieces, either blend it for a very short time or use a spoon. Pour the mixture in a crockpot, set it on high in the beginning, then, after the dip gets hot, change the crockpot setting to lowest.
Serve the dip hot with toasted pita bread, tortilla chips or sliced celery or carrots. When served with bread or chips, you can add some diced tomatoes for a nice touch of color and taste.
Ingredients:
- 10 ounces frozen spinach, thawed, drained and cut small
- 1 can artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
- 1 garlic clove, peeled, minced (if you want to go to a date after eating this dip, you can skip the garlic)
- 1 small onion, chopped (to be skipped as well if you intend to kiss somebody that night)
- 2 cups cottage cheese
- 1 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
- 1 tablespoon mayonnaise (light)
- 3-4 bacon slices (smoked bacon is nice; if it’s not smoked, it’s better if you pre-cook it a bit)
- Salt and pepper to taste
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Serves: 8
How to cook it:
Mix together the cottage cheese, the garlic, the onion, the salt and the pepper, half of the Parmesan cheese quantity and the mayonnaise. Stir them well, or use a food blender if you want to be faster (although if we think how much time it takes you to wash the blender afterwards, you could use a fork as well). Add the bacon, the artichokes and the spinach and stir gently, until everything blends well. Oil a baking dish and pour the dip inside, then put it in the pre-heated oven for 20 minutes. After that, remove it, top it with the rest of Parmesan cheese and put in back in the oven for ten more minutes.
Serve the spinach artichoke dip hot with toasted pita bread cut in four or with French baguettes. Raw vegetable sticks can also be a tasty dipping. Try carrots or celery.
Ingredients:
- 1 can artichoke hearts, drained
- 2-3 garlic cloves, minced (can be replaced with garlic powder or garlic salt)
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- 8-10 oz frozen spinach, thawed, drained and cut small
- 1 cup fat-free yogurt
- 1 cup fat-free cottage cheese
- 1/2 teaspoon of balsamic vinegar (or freshly squeezed lemon juice)
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Serves: 8
Cooking procedure:
This is one of the fastest artichokes and spinach dip recipes. It’s easy to prepare because canned artichokes are pre-cooked, spinach is very good raw and the other ingredients just go inside as they are. Basically all you need to do is mix all ingredients together in a big bowl, stir well, let everything sit in the refrigerator for 30 minutes, then serve it. Be careful to drain very well the artichokes and the spinach, because if they are watery, the composition will be too fluid and you’ll probably have to eat it with the spoon. That’s not what you’d wish for a festive dinner unless you don’t care about your guests. Another cooking tip: depending on how much you insist with the stirring, the dip will get a different consistency. Just stop when you feel it’s right. Serving suggestion: top the bowl with diced tomatoes, black olives and some parsley and use tortilla chips, toasted pita bread or celery sticks for dipping. For those of you who like it hot, adding some hot chili peppers could be a great idea.
Hot spinach and artichoke dip with cheese ingredients:
- 1 can of artichoke hearts (buying them canned decreases preparation time), very well drained, chopped small. Frozen artichoke hearts can be used (thaw them before cooking)
- 1 cup frozen spinach, thawed, well drained, chopped
- 8 ounce cream cheese
- 2-3 tablespoons Parmesan cheese, grated
- 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise (get light mayo if you want a healthier version of this dip recipe)
- 1/2 cup sour cream (can be replaced with yogurt)
- 2 garlic cloves, peeled, minced (if you don’t have fresh garlic, you can replace it with garlic powder)
- Herbs and spices according to taste (use either basil or dried chili peppers flakes or parsley)
- Salt and pepper, according to taste
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 35 minutes
Serves: 8
Cooking procedure:
First of all, you need to preheat the oven to 350 F. Mix all creamy ingredients together in a bowl (the cream cheese, the sour cream, the mayonnaise), then add the spices, the garlic, the salt and the pepper and mix everything very well. Then add the spinach and the artichokes, stirring gently until you get a homogeneous mixture. Don’t stir too much, because if you do, you’ll transform the spinach and the artichoke pieces into a paste. If you don’t mind that, then it’s fine, but if you want to feel the separate foods textures, you’ll have to be gentle when stirring. Pour the composition in a baking dish previously greased with a teaspoon of olive oil. Make sure that the mixture doesn’t fill the baking dish up to the edge. Bake the food for 30 minutes, then take it out of the oven, top it with the grated Parmesan cheese and let it bake again for more 5 minutes. Serve hot.
Health tip: if you want to decrease the amount of fats in this spinach artichoke dip, you can leave out the sour cream and the cheese completely.