HAPPY MONDAY.
You deserve this. How was your weekend? Ours was fabulous, filled with a wedding with wonderful friends, cooking, family time, begging Beck to sit in a high chair to eat (??), yard work, enjoying fall weather, the absolute most perfect mix of relaxation and fun and productivity.
So instead of ruining that feeling with vegetables or a salad or similarly boring Monday meal, we're cutting straight to next weekend, where you should probably definitely for sure make THIS. Super simple spinach artichoke dip with four cheeses, including goat. Goat cheese makes it fancy, duh. My sister actually came up with the idea and I made a big batch of this for our last family gathering, and the dip was GONE in about four seconds. We have garlic and green onion for flavor, so much cheese, and the base is vegetables which practically makes this a salad, so no worries if you end up making this today and eating it with a spoon for dinner.
Let's not waste any more time talking about it.
The Best Spinach Artichoke Dip
You need! Spinach. Frozen, thawed, squeezed out to get rid of the water. Artichokes. These were frozen from Trader Joe's so I treated them the same way as the spinach, microwaved them, squished water out of them, and chopped them up. Jarred or canned work well too, just get the kind packaged in water instead of marinated. Then the dip comes together with mayo, sour cream, goat cheese, parmesan, mozzarella, super sharp white cheddar, garlic, and sliced scallions. 
The method is adorable: put everything except for the parmesan and goat cheese in a bowl and stir it up. Taste it and add a pinch of salt and/or pepper if you'd like - I didn't add anything and the dip was perfect for us. 
Spread half of the dip in a baking dish, then break the goat cheese into chunks and scatter it all over. 
Spoon the rest of the dip gently over the goat cheese (the idea is that there will be pockets of super flavorful goat cheese running through the dip after it's baked), and top the whole mess with the parmesan. 
I mean. It's good even before it's baked. You can definitely make this easy spinach artichoke dip ahead of time and bake it right before you'd like to eat it, if you can even wait that long. When you're ready to cook the dip, bake it at 350F for 30 minutes or so, just until the cheese is hot and bubbly and the top has browned slightly. If you like crusty cheese you can broil it for a minute or two - crusty cheese is the best thing in the universe so probably do that. 
Then it's time! To devour. This is a thicker dip so you'll need something sturdy for dipping. I had some naan leftover from something else that I toasted in the oven for a few minutes so that it wasn't too soft, but crackers or tortilla chips or pita work wonderfully with this dip as well. 
Now, if you don't have four cheeses or don't like any of these just leave them out and add more of a cheese you do like. We LOVE the addition of goat cheese because it is so tangy and flavorful and makes the other ingredients pop. The end result tastes like traditional spin/art dip amped up, and making the spinach artichoke dip couldn't be simpler. 
I'm thinking this is perfect for sportsball-watching, family-timing, or Thanksgiving-ing. Maybe for all three, maybe even for a Monday. 
Enjoy!
How to make the best spinach artichoke dip:
Recipe
Four Cheese Spinach Artichoke Dip
Equipment
Ingredients
- 8 ounces frozen spinach thawed and squeezed dry
- 12 ounces artichokes drained or thawed and chopped
- ½ cup sour cream
- ½ cup mayonnaise
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 3 scallions sliced
- 4 ounces grated sharp cheddar
- 4 ounces grated mozzarella
- 4 ounces goat cheese
- ¼ cup parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F and grease a medium baking dish with cooking spray or olive oil. The baking dish I used was equivalent to an 8x8.
- In a large bowl, combine all of the ingredients except for the goat cheese and parmesan. Taste, and add pinches of salt and pepper if you'd like.
- Spread half of the mixture in the baking dish, then crumble the goat cheese evenly over the dip. Top gently with the rest of the dip, then sprinkle with all of the parmesan.
- Bake the dip for 30-40 minutes until it is hot and bubbly and the top has browned slightly. Broil for one or two minutes if you'd like a darker crust on the dip.
- Serve with carb of choice. Enjoy!
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