Lean and lovin' it: Onion dip slims down for summer snacking
Editor's note: Don Mauer is taking some time off. This column originally appeared in June 2009.
The other weekend I had some good friends over to celebrate the second year of my 165-pound weight loss. I cleaned the deck and scrubbed down the grill and had watermelon chilling in the fridge.
I had lean burgers on whole-grain buns, marinated skinless chicken thighs and basil-dusted zucchini and my lean, creamy slaw on the dinner menu. But for days I was stuck on what to serve before get-togethers get into full swing.
A trip to the farmers market yielded a nice batch of celery, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, green and red peppers and mushrooms caps and got me thinking about dip.
But what dip?
Fresh salsa's a tasty, virtually fat-free dip for baked tortilla chips (guests love my homemade, warm-from-the-oven chips over cold-from-the-bag chips), but it doesn't work well with my buffet of veggies. I wanted a creamy dip, something that clings to the broccoli florets and mushroom caps.
Some 20 years ago when I topped 300 pounds, I went for the traditional dip made with sour cream and French onion soup mix. Today I know that dip, thanks to sour cream, is laden with fat. Reading the ingredient list on that soup mix I learned salt is listed second after onions. Double trouble.
Sure, I could use fat-free sour cream for that soup mix dip and eliminate the fat and almost 500 calories, but I'd still have serious salt issues. I rummaged through some recipes I'd saved from magazines over the past 25 years and came across a dandy dip that used both yellow and green onions (scallions) and bacon. I liked the idea of combining the smoky crunch of bacon with the sweet, caramel notes of golden sauteed onion in a dip.
The recipe called for full-fat sour cream, several tablespoons of oil for cooking the onions and high-fat fried bacon (almost 13 fat grams per ounce.) If I was going to serve it at my party it needed a makeover.
I've never been completely happy with fat-free sour cream, but find that a 50/50 combination of reduced-fat and fat-free sour cream keeps fat and calories in check while delivering creamy texture and decent flavor notes. This easy substitution cuts calories by almost half and trims fat by almost 75 percent.
Slow-cooking the onions in a small amount of olive oil until they reach a golden hue truly boosts this dip's flavor; adding a touch of brown sugar for flavor does little harm.
When it came to the bacon, I cooked it in the oven instead of frying it in its own fat. Since the bacon for this dip is minced, I trimmed some of the fattier parts before roasting. A winning system all the way.
I made the dip for my guests and they raved about it. They couldn't believe it was about as guilt-free as a dip can be. Give it a try.
• Don Mauer welcomes questions, comments and recipe makeover requests. Write him at don@theleanwizard.com.