Anyone else wondering where the heck time has gone lately? I sincerely hope it’s not just me standing here wondering how it’s almost July already!?! Summers in my friend/family/work circles are all about people making delicious dishes so we can visit (& eat!) the days away. In my case, there are a lot of food days at work because I happen to work at a fairly laid back company with some fairly amazing people! What’s a girl to do when everything that’s on the sign up sheet for the upcoming work food day is already something I would normally contribute? Make and bring in a family fave that no one at work is familiar with..of course! Why didn’t I think of that? Oh wait, I guess I kinda just did 😉 Which brings me (and now you) to the dip my family calls Fiesta Crab Dip!
This fiesta crab dip has been a long-standing family fave for about as far back as I can remember. In fact, I’ve got a great (and, by great, I mean regretfully embarrassing but still awesome) childhood memory of this dip. My cousins and I were not-so-patiently waiting for the extended family get-together’s meal to begin one fateful summer day. Much to our chagrin, the adults seemed to be in no rush to get that portion of the day underway. Obviously we were poor starving children who hadn’t had a snack in forever and we had been banished to “go play in the basement” until dinner was ready. My cousins and I were no dummies, we knew that dinner bell wouldn’t be (metaphorically) ringing anytime in our near future.
So, geniuses that we were, we decided to sneak upstairs and swipe just one serving tray of dip and one bag of chips. Our dip of choice? Fiesta crab dip! Who would notice those missing items in the smorgasbord of food already laid out on grandma’s kitchen surfaces? Apparently no one noticed. That is..until our parents finally did come downstairs to tell us dinner was ready and found that we had demolished the entire crab dip and bag of chips.
What could we say? We were just kids…growing kids at that…famished kids in dire need of some nourishment! Yeah, we didn’t fool our parents with those lines or our big puppy dog sad eyes either! On the bright side, we did make sure to share with everyone how tasty it was and that we tried to save some for everyone else, we really did. But, after so many banished-to-the-basement card games, boredom equates to hunger, everyone knows that!
Back to present day, I recently made that same dip recipe and brought it into work for a food day. It struck me as ironic that not one, not two, but multiple people said they had to have that recipe because they could eat the whole bowl themselves! This was pure validation to my childhood self that my cousins and I were indeed justified in consuming the whole dish ourselves. If adults want to eat this until they can’t eat any more then what chance did we (poor famished snack deprived kids) have? This all brings me to the most important point of this recipe: serving size is an estimate! I hope you enjoy this recipe and, for the sake of those you are serving it to, I really hope you start with a double batch 😉
Fiesta Crap Dip
Super simple dip to throw together and easily customized to your taste preferences!
Ingredients
- Salad:
- 2 packages cream cheese, softened (I always use the reduced fat version, no taste difference in my opinion!)
- 2 cups salsa
- 8 ounces imitation crabmeat, chopped
- 1 cup finely shredded cheddar cheese
- 1 small bunch of green onions, thinly sliced
- 1 large tomato, chopped
- 1/2 bunch of fresh cilantro, chopped
- Tortilla chips or sliced sweet peppers for serving
Directions
1) In a medium size mixing bowl, combine cream cheese and salsa well.
2) Add rest of ingredients (reserving some cheese, green onions, tomatoes for the top if you are big into presentation).
3) Cover and refrigerate until time to serve (can top with remaining cheese, green onions, tomatoes as well as any other topping of choice such as black olive slices, jalepeno slices, etc).
4) Serve with tortilla chips (or sliced fresh red/green/yellow/orange sweet peppers if you are going the healthier and still delicious route!)
This works extremely well in tortillas as a new twist on roll-ups too! (this tip brought to you courtesy of my brilliant sister-in-law!)
Simplified By Stacie 