Easy Homemade French Onion Dip

"Necessity is the mother of invention."

I'm sure all of us real foodies have thought of ourselves as somewhat of an inventor in the kitchen at one time or the other. While trying our best to avoid the Standard American Diet and still eat foods that we enjoy, you have to get pretty creative. Sometimes these failures end up tossed out, but sometimes we strike gold! 

I had just such an experience last weekend when looking through my fridge for a snack (I seem to spend a lot of time these days doing that with my pregnancy). I found a few carrots that needed to be used up soon and an almost empty container of sour cream. I wanted some dip for the carrots but I didn't want to take the time to make up my baconnaise (this fabulous recipe is coming soon) and THEN turn around and make ranch dressing out of that. Baby wanted a snack NOW!

I got out the sour cream and stared at my spice cabinet for a little while. It seems like most vegetable dips are sour cream based so surely I could make something that tasted decent enough to satisfy my hunger with some carrot sticks. 

I finally shook in some onion powder, minced onion and salt. I figured surely there couldn't be that much to french onion dip once you get beyond all the weird stuff added to store-bought dip. I was blown away when I tasted it! It was incredible how much it tasted like the stuff you get at a store! My husband actually ate some carrots just because the dip tasted so good, and believe me his is NOT a carrot fan. 

So there you go! I don't have an actual recipe because I just shake the stuff in until it taste alright. Here's that list of ingredients again:

               Sour cream - I like Daisy brand because of the nice, short ingredient list: 

Grade A cultured cream. And yes, we like the full fat kind.

Onion powder - It takes quite a bit of this. Mrs. H has a great post on how to make homemade onion powder.

Minced onion

salt - We use Real Salt brand

It takes about a minute to whip this up, and if you want to feel good about yourself, check out this ingredient list from a popular brand of french onion dip:

SKIM MILK, WHEY (MILK), PALM OIL, WATER, CONTAINS LESS THAN 2% OF ONION*, PARSLEY*, SALT, SUGAR, HYDROLYZED SOY AND CORN PROTEIN, HYDROLYZED TORULA AND BREWER’S YEAST PROTEIN, CITRIC ACID, LACTIC ACID, ACETIC ACID, MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE, FOOD STARCH-MODIFIED, GELATIN, SODIUM HEXAMETAPHOSPHATE, LOCUST BEAN GUM, SOY LECITHIN, POTASSIUM SORBATE (TO PRESERVE FRESHNESS), GUAR GUM, CARRAGEENAN, YELLOW 5 & 6. *DEHYDRATED. 

Uh...yum?

This post is linked at The Healthy Home Economist's Monday Mania 8/6/2012.