Hot buffalo chicken dip with homemade ranch seasoning. One skillet, a few simple ingredients, and TONS of flavor. This gets gobbled up every time we make it! Very delicious with crunchy veggies and pizza dough focaccia for dunking, just throwing that out there.
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Look at all the vegetables we're eating this season with our butter and cheese! Balance, you know.
Now that it's December, I'm all about snacky foods, parties, and salads in between to keep things under control. I love all things Buffalo and, while maybe not the fanciest type of food, everyone else usually does too.
Plus also football all the time that never ends, you know. Buffalo + Football = Math.
The method here is so simple. In an ovenproof skillet (I have this little Le Creuset number that I got on clearance), you'll sear some chicken, then shred it, throw it back in the skillet with a ton of stuff to make it buffalo-ish. The whole mess bakes with blue cheese and grated mozzarella, and then we use our "veggies" (pita and bread and crackers, please) for dunking and happiness.
Now, I intentionally didn't make this super duper creamy with cream cheese or other things like that. This is mainly hot sauce, chicken and cheese with ranch dressing flavors added for HELL YES WE DID THAT. There are buffalo chicken dips that use ranch as the base, and I wanted a grown up essence of that without actually using ranch dressing.
Ingredients
First, gather up the seasoning ingredients - hot sauce and butter for the buffalo flavors, onion powder, garlic powder, dried parsley, and dried dill that taste like homemade ranch dressing. Have this ready to throw in the hot skillet after the chicken cooks.
Step By Step Instructions
We start by searing our chicken in lots of the seasonings for extra flavor. I do this right in the dish I'm going to bake the buffalo chicken dip in to save a dish!
Pro Tip: To save time, leftover grilled or baked chicken works really well in this recipe!
This is actually a seasoning blend I use on chicken all the time, and while it's super simple it's also something we get complemented on a lot. So use it in other dinners!
Cook the chicken for about 7 minutes on each side, less if they're thin pieces, until the chicken is cooked through.
Leave the skillet on when you take the chicken out of the skillet, place it on a plate to cool.
Right away, add all of the buffalo sauce ingredients to the hot skillet. Turn the heat OFF the skillet and stir to melt the butter and incorporate the spices, scraping up any chicken bits as you go.
When the chicken is cooled enough to handle, shred it into little bits, grate some cheese, and gather everything together.
Stir the chicken and mozzarella into the sauce in the skillet, and scatter the blue cheese on top of the mixture. This is kind of the make-ahead threshold; you can make the dip up to this point and bake it anytime you'd like, even keeping it in the fridge for a few days.
When you'd like to eat the dip, preheat the oven to 350F and bake the dip uncovered for 20-30 minutes until hot all the way through and bubbly. Serve immediately with anything you'd like.
Variations and Ingredient Notes
- This is GREAT for a use-up of other chicken. Grilled, rotisserie, baked, seriously any random chicken you have that's already cooked will save some time with this recipe!
- Hot Sauce: I like Frank's and Texas Pete hot sauces almost equally. Tabasco is nice, or anything labeled cayenne pepper sauce. Don't buy buffalo wing sauce, as that usually has butter already in it. If you already have buffalo wing sauce, use it and skip the butter.
- Cheese: Any white melty cheese you like is great here! Provolone, Monterrey jack, or anything like that will work great. If you don't like blue cheese, feel free to skip it.
I love this for holidays and weekend gatherings because it can be made ahead and heated up right at serving time. Since there isn't a processed creamy component the dip may separate just slightly, but the spicy flavor is just perfect and as long as you eat it right away, and you will, there will be no issues.
Grown up blue cheese buffalo chicken dip, look at you you fancy pants! Get after it.
Recipe
Blue Cheese Buffalo Chicken Dip
Ingredients
- 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
- 1 ¼ teaspoon onion powder
- 1 ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon dried dill
- 1 teaspoon dried parsley
- ½ cup 1 stick butter
- ½ cup hot sauce such as Texas Pete
- 8 ounces grated mozzarella cheese or any melting cheese you like
- ¼ cup blue cheese crumbles
- veggies pita wedges, crackers, or bread for dunking and serving
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F and a 10-inch ovenproof skillet to medium heat with a drizzle of olive oil. Sprinkle the chicken with ¼ teaspoon each of salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder. Sear the chicken on each side for about 7 minutes until cooked through. Remove the chicken from the skillet to cool and leave the heat on.
- Add the hot sauce, butter, remaining onion powder, garlic powder, parsley, and sill to the skillet. Turn the heat OFF, and stir to combine and scrape up any bits from the skillet. Set the buffalo sauce aside.
- When the chicken is cool, shred into small bits with forks or your fingers. Add the chicken back to the buffalo sauce in the skillet with the mozzarella. Top with the blue cheese crumbles.
- Bake the dip for 20-30 minutes until hot and bubbly. Serve with anything you'd like, and eat immediately.
Made this the other night and it was so good. I love the blue cheese, this dip was the best!
Looks delicious to me! Thanks for another amazing recipe to try!
This dip was a real crowd pleaser! Everyone loved it, and it was the first thing gone! Great recipe!
So glad you loved it, Jeri!
Great recipe. Filing this one away for the Super Bowl.
The perfect winter weekend snack!
This recipe looks great, can't wait to try it.
i always come back to make this recipe when I have game night!
The best dip! So so delicious!