French Onion Dip and Homemade Pita Chips

Healthy French Onion Dip & Homemade Pita Chips



A few weeks ago, my husband was told he has high triglycerides.  Since then he has done a great job of modifying his diet to get his levels to a better place and I've been doing what I can to show him he eat healthy, have a lot of variety in his diet, and enjoy some treats that are actually pretty darn healthy.  When he first learned his triglycerides were high and what dietary changes he would need to make, he was going on and on about not eating pizza, pasta, as well as chips and dip.  I had a few ideas.  We tried a great recipe for Ranch Dip and he's enjoying eating this dip with raw carrots.  You can see the recipe HERE.


Next I decided to search for a recipe for Healthy French Onion Dip and I decided to make some homemade pita chip for crunch.



Here is the recipe for Healthy French Onion Dip; it's made with Greek yogurt.  My husband really likes the dip on pita chips but he says it's also good on raw carrots.  I was out of town for a few days and my husband said he put a nice dollop of the French Onion Dip on a turkey burger and he said that was also really good.  I should remind you that my husband basically says he does NOT like Greek yogurt, but he likes these dips which are made with Greek yogurt.

The French Onion Dip recipe is a bit of work and you do need to cool the caramelized onions before adding the onions to the cold yogurt.  If you are short on time, you can easily make up the onion portion of the recipe a day or two in advance and then refrigerate the caramelized onions until you want to make the dip.

The source of inspiration for this recipe can be found here on a website called "The Kitchn".  I did not make a lot of changes to the recipe except I used far less thyme.  I find dried thyme to be a very potent seasoning so I just added in two little teeny tiny pinches of dried thyme.  The original recipe calls for "2 springs of fresh thyme".  To prepare my onions for the dip, I used only 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil; however, the original recipe calls for 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil.

The original recipe can be found here.
https://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-homemade-french-onion-dip-with-caramelized-onions-and-greek-yogurt-recipes-from-the-kitchn-199360

French Onion Dip

Makes about 3 cups

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 3 small to medium sized sweet onions (I used Vidalia onions), finely chopped
• Pinch of salt
• 1
  large clove garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon
  Worcestershire sauce
• 2 small pinches of dried thyme
• 2 cups
  plain Greek-style yogurt (I used Fage brand 2%)
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon
  salt (I used kosher) or salt to taste

Add the oil and onions along with a big pinch of salt to a large sauté pan. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until onions caramelize into a deep brown color. This may take up to 30 minutes. You may need to add a splash of water or wine towards the end if the onions begin to burn.

When the onions are done, add the minced garlic and stir for several seconds until you can smell the garlic. Turn off the heat and stir in the Worcestershire sauce and dried thyme. Let cool.

In a bowl, mix the cooled onions and the yogurt until blended. Stir in several turns of freshly ground black pepper. Taste for salt. If you are serving this with salted chips, be sure to use one for your final tasting so you can adjust accordingly.

Serve garnished surrounded by your dippers of choice.  This dip can be made a day in advance, kept well-covered in the refrigerator.

For the pita chips, I went all out and made homemade whole wheat pita bread and then chopped them up to make baked pita chips. This is a lot of work and a very time consuming process and most folks might not want to make pita from scratch.   Here is a link that gives you directions for how to make baked pita chips using store bought pita bread.  For seasoning, I just used extra virgin olive oil, kosher salt and garlic powder since I was making these chips to scoop the French Onion Dip.  Pita chips can be seasoned in a variety of ways and are great with other dips and spread such as hummus, cheese balls, etc.

Here is the link for Baked Pita Chips instructions:  Click HERE.

Here are a few photos of my homemade whole wheat pita bread. I'll share this recipe in a separate post sometime soon.  Tragedy struck when I was making my pita bread! I heard my oven shake and I was baffled by the odd noise. When I went to check on my pita bread, I found that my pizza stone had cracked in to two pieces!



No worries... I ran out to "Bed, Bath, and Beyond" and got a new one.  This pizza stone cost just under $40.00 but it's a good investment in my opinion. I got years and years of use out of my last pizza stone.