homemade onion dip: round 2

For my family Christmas dinner I was looking to make something different.  We always have the old stand-bys, like mashed potatoes and corn. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, I usually look forward to those things. But since dinner was at my house, I took the opportunity to try some new recipes.  It's my house, my rules.  And it's my prerogative to ditch the mashed potatoes if I want to.  ;) I made Ree Drummond's au gratin potatoes, glazed carrots, and had my brother and sister-in-law bring sweet potato and apple casserole (it tastes like apple pie and it's delicious!).

Since I was making some new recipes, I figured why not make onion dip from scratch?  Last February I made homemade onion dip for the first time. It was good, but it didn't taste anything like what we buy in the store.  Sure, the store stuff is salty, but I like it and so do most other people I know. I went in search of a better recipe and found one on Alton Brown's website.  (I LOVE Alton Brown, so I'm willing to try just about anything he makes.)  This recipe uses mayo and sour cream, rather than Greek yogurt.  That right there told me this dip would taste more like the dip I grew up with.

The recipe calls for a pound of diced onions.  Anytime I use a recipe that wants diced onions or minced garlic, I pull out the food processor or my mini chopper.  Even though I know how to dice and mince those items, they're just messy and stinky to deal with, especially the onions. I didn't want to deal with sticky fingers and runny eyes.  So, I tossed the peeled and trimmed onions in the food processor and in about 10 seconds I had diced onions.  The longest part of the process was frying the onions, which took about 20 minutes--I was frying a double batch, so it took longer for the onions to cook through.  While the onions cooled I mixed together all the other ingredients.  I let the onions cook for a total of about 30 minutes, then mixed it all together.  I then let the dip sit for two days in the fridge.

The results were delicious! Very close to the store-bought onion dip.  Not the crappy stuff that doesn't need refrigeration (scary!), but the stuff in the dairy isle, like Helluva Good.  I liked it much better than the recipe I tried last year and would definitely make it again.  It wasn't difficult or time-consuming to make.  Everyone who tried it loved it. Except my husband.  He didn't seem all that thrilled with it, but that's OK.

Here's the recipe link if you want to try it yourself:  Alton Brown's Onion Dip from Scratch  The key to making this simple is to chop the onions in a food processor.  Otherwise, you're not likely to want to make this.  You'll be crying a river by the time you chop a pound of onions and will want to race for a box of tissues.

(Yes, I had some chips and dip.  Just in case anyone is wondering.  No, I didn't go overboard.)