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.

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.

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.

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.