buffalo chicken dip

If you need a last minute recipe idea for Thanksgiving tomorrow or for the upcoming holidays, I have a super easy, super quick (less than 10 minutes) and super delicious one for you.  This buffalo chicken dip is so easy to make (you might have noticed that I really like easy recipes…I mean come on, who doesn’t) and it is definitely a crowd favorite.  So let’s get started.

Before we start – the full recipe makes a huge amount so I only made half of a recipe this time (since I know there will be tons and tons of other food at Thanksgiving tomorrow).  I’ll post the full recipe at the end of the post, but obviously it will make more than what you see here.

What you need: chicken, ranch dressing, cream cheese, cheddar cheese, and hot sauce

Now that I know how easy it is to cook chicken breast in the Crockpot and then shred it in my KitchenAid mixer, I will be using that method to shred my chicken for this recipe from now on.  However, I had this can of chicken in the pantry from before I learned that handy trick so I went ahead and used it up.  Just fyi.

put your chicken (cooked and shredded or canned) in a large skillet

add in your hot sauce; heat the chicken and hot sauce,

then add the cream cheese,

the ranch,

and the shredded cheese – stir until melted

half of a recipe fills about half of a 1.5 quart mixing bowl (for reference of how much it makes)

serve it up!

recipe

ingredients

• 2 10 oz cans of chicken (or approximately 20 oz chicken breast, cooked and shredded)
• 3/4 cup hot sauce (I use Frank’s)
• 1 cup ranch dressing
• 2 8oz packages cream cheese
• 1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
• celery, carrots, crackers, tortilla chips, etc. for dipping

(since I only made a half recipe today I used 1 can of chicken, about 1/2 cup hot sauce, 1/2 cup ranch, 1 package of cream cheese, and 3/4 cup shredded cheese)

instructions

Heat the chicken and hot sauce in a large skillet (if you make the whole recipe you might just want to go ahead and use a large soup pot/dutch oven – it makes a lot!).  Once the chicken and hot sauce it heated, add the cream cheese and stir until melted.  Stir in the ranch dressing then stir in the shredded cheese until melted.  That’s it – couldn’t be easier!

You can serve this immediately, you can keep it in the fridge and heat it up later, or you can transfer to a Crockpot to keep it warm during the party/event.  I’ve done all of these things and all of them have worked well.  I serve mine with celery, carrots, and tortilla chips.

As far as holiday party dishes go, this one is fairly healthy.  As you can see in the picture, I use 1/3 less fat cream cheese and 2% fat cheddar cheese – this cuts down on the calories some and I think it still tastes great.  If you eat it with celery, then this would even be a South Beach Phase 1 dish (a great dish for you to bring to a potluck and know that you have something you can eat while still sticking to a diet).