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I frequently see buffalo chicken dip showing up at parties. The idea of it sounds pretty good, but more often it ends up all separated with pools of grease like this:
What could be done to stabilize the dip so it remains creamy and unseparated. I had the idea of adding egg yolk, but I suppose you'd have to at least be careful with it to prevent the egg from curdling. |
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I would suggest making this on the stove top, or in the microwave, instead of in the oven. What is happening is that the oil from the cheese separates from the rest of the dish. If you are using bottled salad dressing and cream cheese, there is already many thickeners/stabilizers in those. (Xanthan Gum, Guar Gum, Carob/Locust Bean gum) I suggest that you slowly melt the cheese, along with the cream cheese & salad dressing on low heat. An immersion blender would help to make sure the lumps are gone, after adding the hot sauce, but before you add the chicken (as long as you want to have the chicken texture). From my experience, the oily separation with the cheese is caused by it over cooking. If you aren't a cheese snob (I am), you could substitute Velveta cheese for the cheddar/jack cheese. Do you remember their commercials with the oily gooey messes with cheddar vs Velveta? It is the same principle at work here. |
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Although baking is a totally adequate way of making this dish quickly. If you want to improve presentation, for parties and so on, I would recommend switching to making it in a crock pot or something like that (keeps it warm, contained). If you wanted to add a stabilizer at this point, I would recommend agar-agar (boil in broth, fold into dip - use a smallish amount so that it works as a thickener and stabilizer but not like gelatin). As for a component stabilizer to just add to the recipe, all of the ones listed in Aaronut's comment and Kristalyn's answer would work. My preference, especially with a recipe like this would be to use mustard, prepared or ground. |
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(Source: browneyedbaker.com)
