Buffalo Chicken Dip

Before I moved to the midwest, I only ate dips once or twice a year (probably NYE and Superbowl Sunday). On Saturdays, I was usually too exhausted from my 10-12 mile runs to do much cooking, let alone watch any football (and I usually only watched college games). Here in Chicago, it is too cold (for me) to run outside and that kind of mileage on a treadmill is mental torture. With the Colts doing well, a lot of my social activities now revolve around drinking and football…and when there are more than two of us, I like to make junky foods to spread the fattitude.

This buffalo chicken dip isn’t very photogenic but tastes AMAZING. I always serve it with baguette slices, carrot sticks, and celery sticks. It gets rave reviews and is always the first item to run out.

BUFFALO CHICKEN DIP (adapted from Allrecipes)

• 2 – 10 oz. cans of chunk chicken
• 2 – 8 oz. packages of cream cheese
• 1 cup ranch or blue cheese dressing
• 3/4 cup Frank’s Red Hot (this is KEY)
• 1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese (or substitute some with blue cheese if you used ranch dressing)

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat chicken and hot sauce in a skillet over medium heat, until heated through.
2. Stir in cream cheese and ranch/blue cheese dressing. Cook, stirring until well blended and warm.
3. Mix in half of the shredded cheese, and transfer the mixture to a slow cooker. Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top, cover, and cook on Low setting until hot and bubbly.

NOTES

This dip is very rich and creamy so it can accommodate more chicken without having to adjust anything else. I had a package of oven roasted chicken breast Joel used to use to make salads sitting in the freezer. I dumped the entire package in with the rest of the canned chicken and it didn’t really change the taste, texture, or balance of the dip. I also used low fat cream cheese and light dressing…the dip is still so rich you won’t taste the difference.