Baked Sweet Onion Dip Recipe and Bountiful Cookbook Dinner

Sweet Onion “Crack Dip” Recipe

Stop everything and make this sweet onion dip recipe. Though the recipe is our creation, we can’t take credit for the nickname. It belongs to a little gathering of friends always labels it as “crack dip”. So when it came time to sharing it again in our cookbook, Bountiful, we lovingly added the new name to the final draft. Thankfully, our  editor was open-minded enough to let us coin this term in print because the nickname really is fitting. And delicious. This recipe was originally published in 2008 and made with Walla Walla sweet onions, inspired by a trip back to Northeast Oregon. You can read the original story and recipe inspiration here. Enjoy!

Why this warm baked onion dip recipe is worth making

Our sweet onion dip recipe is easy for even the newest cooks to make and for you over-achievers. It only takes a few ingredients and a little patience to bake. The savory, caramelized onion flavors of this dip is amazing. This dip will still make you look good, like you slaved over the stove for hours. Be prepared for the applause that follows when everyone has a few bites.

Do you need to use sweet onions? Are regular onions ok?

If you can get your hands on a sweet onion, the dip will be even better. When the sweet onion is baked slowly to caramelize in the dip, the incredible sweet flavors come out. BUT, any onion is ok too from white onions to yellow onions. We’ve made most of our batches with regular yellow onions and it always turns out wonderful. No red onions though! We’ve never tried it with red onion but don’t think the flavors of red onion would be enough to make the dip flavorful. A

Video: Baked Onion Dip Recipe

Tips on Making our Baked Onion Dip

• Use alot of fresh cracked black pepper! Our recipe says about 2 teaspoons of cracked pepper and it might seem like alot. But seriously, the black pepper gives an earthy and rich flavor to the dip.
• MAYO ALERT: Ok, we’re not endorsing any brand but after so many tests, there’s only one mayo we use. The Best Foods or Hellmans brand of mayo is fluffy, flavorful and our favorite.
• NOT “no fat” : What does this mean? Treat yourself and go for the real stuff. The “no fat” versions of cream cheese and mayo don’t bake the same and what you will get is a dry lump of white stuff. Don’t do it. Go for the regular versions.
• Type of onion: as we discussed above, you can use sweet onions, white onions or yellow onions.
• All sweet onion dip recipe details are in the recipe box below.

Best Party Dip

This sweet onion dip recipe is a mish-mash of many things devilish, fattening and wonderful. Once in a while, you have to indulge and spoil yourself rotten with something warm, cheesy and comforting. You deserve it. We all deserve it and without these little moments of cheesy-joy, eating and cooking wouldn’t be half as fun or adventurous. And when all is said and done, you can fun a few miles around the track, sweat off a few pounds and start all over again.

Where to buy Bountiful online? You can purchase it here on Amazon.

Our Bountiful Cook Book Party

Because this dip is so special to us, we wanted to make it in huge batches for our Bountiful cookbook signing with wonderful KitchenAid last week in the beautiful New York City, The Daily Meal kitchen.

We taught how to roll the perfect spring roll. No floppies or burrito-sized here.

iphone view of the whole party eating together. It was so great to finally meet so many of our editors & NYC colleagues

We were able to have a beautiful New York City venue to hold a little dinner for our fellow editors, colleagues and handful of bloggers. At the dinner, we shared all made spring rolls together, poured proseco thanks to Mionetto and ate crack-dip till we dropped.

thanks to amazing beauties who helped organize : Rachel, Jill and Katie-Lee (love you!) iphone Photo credit: Dervla Kelly

We arrived at The Daily Meal kitchen with two suitcases full of groceries. In fact, these New York City locals kinda giggled at us for rolling up two full-sized suit cases to the fourth floor kitchen. How else are two tourists supposed to bring up about 3 shopping carts full of groceries to feed a party of 40? Indeed, it was the most efficient way to arrive, ready to cook, with about 100 pounds of groceries. You New York City locals should try it!

Friends Jacques & Hasty Torres came to celebrate & they “thumbs-up” the book. 

After about three hours of prepping vegetables and fillings in the incredible KitchenAid equipped kitchen (the KitchenAid ice maker is to-die-for), we were ready to feed 40 guests. And no White On Rice Couple party is ever complete without cocktails. So Todd made a few pitchers of our pomegranate grapefruit gin cocktail. Done. This Bountiful dinner was already ready.

apparently we said something funny . They were laughing at us. ooops. bloopers. iphone Photo credit: Dervla Kelly

Rachel and her team made sure everyone had beverages  and crack-dip topped off. We made sure everyone rolled perfectly tight and plump spring rolls. Everyone seemed to behave and best of all, their rolls like amazing. The guests are now ready to pass on these spring rolling skills at their next dinner party. Some even might open up their own spring roll restaurant. Their skills are that crazy good.

Thanks to everyone at KitchenAid and The Daily Meal for hosting our Bountiful dinner! We’re so grateful for your support. And to the rest of you, enjoy the sweet onion crack-dip! Warning— it’s addicting.

our cookbook editor at Abrams and photographer of the evening… Dervla!

Jacques and Hasty Torres zoom off in their motorcyle and Bountiful.