There's a Mexican restaurant chain that I have never been to but I love. It's called Chuy's and the reason I love it is they have a heavenly concoction called Creamy Jalapeno Dip. It actually started out as a salad dressing and they noticed people would ask for it on the side and dip their chips in it so they made a good business decision and offered it as a dip. My mother-in-law brought it to a family gathering once and I was hooked. I am not usually a spicy food eater, but this stuff is like crack to me. I can't stop eating it. I searched for and found this recipe which is a little different than some of the others out there. Of course, this one purports to be from someone who used to work there and has inside knowledge. This is the only copycat recipe I have tried so I can't say which is best, but this one tastes like the real thing to me. You can adjust the heat in it too by increasing or decreasing the amount of jalapenos you add. I got to use my fresh-from-the-garden peppers this time!
Ingredients:
1 quart mayonnaise (the olive oil mayo is great in this!)
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup chopped jalapeno
1 cup green tomatillo sauce
1/2 bunch chopped cilantro
3 (1 oz) packets dry ranch dressing mix
Here are my lovely fresh jalapenos ready to get chopped up.
Then add everything but the ranch mix to your food processor or blender and blend until smooth.
Whisk in the ranch mix.
Chill and serve. I have used it for a dip and also as a topping for tacos. Super fast and yummalish!
I made this as written and it's darn close to the original. The taste was a tad to mayo-ey for me so I added about a cup of sour cream and that seemed to make the taste and consistency perfect. I also wonder if they use fresh tomatillos for this instead of the salsa verde but man, this is the closest recipe I've found. :)
ReplyDeleteThe restaurant uses pickled jalapenos drained.
ReplyDeleteI know I'm a little late to the party, but I do not recommend any mayonnaise except the regular. The olive and canola mayos have double the ingredients including modified food starches, which make the dip take on a gelatinous texture. To me, that's unpleasant. I did use canned jalapenos for the most part, but i threw in one fresh one. Thanks for posting!
ReplyDeleteI have never had a problem with the dip being gelatinous when using Olive Oil Mayo. Maybe it just gets eaten too fast? LOL
ReplyDeleteMy brother got us hooked on Chuys when we went to Texas for a visit. The creamy jalapeno dip was addictive. My husband used this recipe when my brother was in Oklahoma this past Christmas and he thought it was the real thing. He couldn't believe it when we told him we made it. By the way, we use real tomatillos.
ReplyDeleteI added 1.5 to 2 cups of sour cream and about a 1 to 2 cups of fresh cilantro leaves and a about half a teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper. This made the consistency less runny, more like what we had at Chuy's in Nashville, TN.
ReplyDelete