Recipes for Healthy Dips

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Posted by Lynda on December 21st, 2012 (Diet, Good Foods, Healthy Recipes, Weight Loss)

Make healthy eating easier over the holiday season with these delicious diet recipes for healthy dips.

Everyone loves dips. There is something wonderfully communal about tucking in, one and after another, time and time again to a platter with a variety of flavours, textures, colours, crisp and crunch.

But dips come in two forms – friend and foe. Make your own and dips can be angelic – healthy and nutritious. Fall foul of its processed ready-made sibling, and dips are a diet-sabotaging devil doused in fat, thickeners, preservatives and artificial flavourings. (Yes, I’ve exaggerated for effect but it is in fact still true.).

When Dips Become Dangerous…

Let’s be clear, dangerous dips are the processed ready-made ones with a list of ingredients that include items which sound like they came out of a chemistry lab – and aren’t an ingredient your grandmother would have cooked with. They are also high in fat when you check the nutrition labels. As a general rule, anything with less than 3g per 100g is low fat while any food with 20g of fat per 100g is considered high fat.

You can find healthier and pricier gourmet dips on the market which is great, but they aren’t cheap so why not make your own?

Healthy Dip Recipes

All these dips will will keep in the fridge for 5-7 days so I spoon mine into old clean jam jars and put them in the fridge. This way they are easy to grab for lunch boxes and also look great spread out over the table when entertaining.

Of course the healthiest items to dip into your dips are raw sticks of veg – think carrot, celery, cucumber, broccoli, cauliflower, radish, Japanese radish, raw beetroot and leaves of a robust lettuce like a Cos. But rice cakes, rice crackers or water biscuits are also ok – just avoid crisps and anything with over 5g of fat per 100 grams if you want to keep it diet-friendly.

Here are some healthy dips recipe ideas – which can be turned into as many dips as you can imagine.

Yoghurt Based Dips

Forget sour cream or cream cheese – the healthiest and easiest creamy base is a good quality low fat yoghurt. Read the food label though and check it is just yoghurt and cultures, and doesn’t have added starch or sugar.

Onion Dip

Finely chop or use a food processor to mince 1 onion. Spoon over 3-4 tablespoons of yoghurt depending on how large your onion was, until you get a good dip consistency. Sprinkle over a handful of freshly chopped parsley. You can make this onion and garlic by adding a couple of cloves of minced garlic too.

Lemon & Thyme Dip

Add the zest of two lemons and the juice of 1 to 4-5 tablespoons of yoghurt. Stir in a handful of freshly chopped and de-stalked thyme and season with pepper.

Greek style Dip

Finely chop cucumber and spring onions and add yoghurt until you get the desired consistency. Add some freshly chopped mint and 1 clove of crushed garlic. Squeeze over the juice of half a lemon and season well with pepper.

Creamy Pumpkin Dip

Roast half a pumpkin or some butternut squash – or even better, use left overs. Blitz with a hand blender until smooth. Season well, add some ground cumin and then stir in yoghurt a tablespoon at a time until you get the desired consistency – usually 2 spoonfuls is enough because the pumpkin here becomes the base.

Roasted Egg Plant Dip

Roast 3 egg plants in the oven whole until a knife easily slips through them. Leave to cool before halving them and scooping out the insides into a bowl. Season well and add a sprinkling of dried chilli, coriander and cumin then blitz with a hand-blender until smooth. Add a tablespoon of yoghurt at a time until you get a good consistency – or use a tablespoon of olive oil instead.

Peanut Satay Dip

Put 4 tablespoons of crunchy peanut butter in a bowl (or smooth if you prefer) and add 1 teaspoons of fish sauce, 1 teaspoon of soy sauce, an inch of grated ginger and 1 clove of crushed garlic. Mix well and then add water until you have a runnier consistency This one is delicious with celery sticks.

Beans & Pulses

Beans and pulses make a fabulous healthy base for dips. Not only are they highly nutritious, but they are low in fat and a low GI food, so you will feel satisfied with sustained blood sugar levels until Christmas dinner is cooked.

Chickpeas – Red Pepper Hummus

Roast 4 red peppers in an oven until the skins blacken. Put in a bowl, cover with clean film and leave to cool. Once cool peel off the skins, remove the seeds but keep the juice that leaks out of them. Season and add 2 cloves of crushed garlic and 2 tins of drained chickpeas to the peeled peppers and blitz until smooth. if it is too thick, use a spoonful or two of water to thin it down.

Butter Bean Dip

Put 2 tins of drained butter beans into a bowl. Add 1 tablespoons of olive oil, paprika, oregano, 2 cloves of crushed garlic and season well. Blitz until smooth.

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