I absolutely adore buffalo chicken wing dip so anytime I have a good excuse to make a batch, I'm all over it! I've tried a variety of recipes along the way, but I've found that keeping the ingredients simple, but high quality is the way to go!
When I say high-quality ingredients, it's really the cheese that's super important in this recipe. I'm all for generic brands; however, the generic cream cheese tends to get lumpy and generic cheddar produces extra grease, bluck!
Ingredients:
- 2 chicken breasts with extra fat pieces cut off
- 1 8oz block Philadelphia cream cheese
- 1 8oz block of sharp or extra sharp cheddar cheese (buy a block and manually shred, do NOT use the pre-shredded bag here)
- 1 16oz bottle of ranch (sometimes I use a little less than the whole bottle)
- Hot sauce to taste! Personal preference, I use Crystals because it gives a lot of flavor without getting the dip too spicy which can be more crowd pleasing
Make It:
- Cook your chicken then shred - I used to boil but now I pop them into the instant pot on a trivet, add one cup of water, set to high for 20 minutes. Be sure to let the cooked chicken rest for at least 5 minutes before shredding!
- *To shred: use two forks or the quick trick of using a hand mixer (it really works).
- In a medium saucepan, melt the cream cheese with ranch on low to medium heat.
- Once cream cheese is completely melted, stir in the cheddar cheese in sections. Let melt while stirring and then add in another handful of cheese until all the cheese is in.
- Stir in hot sauce to taste and then stir in the shredded chicken
- Bake in an oven-proof dish at 350° for 30 minutes... even if I'm adding to a crockpot afterwards, I usually do this step. Something about baking it just melds everything together super nice; however, if you don't have time (or don't want to dirty up a baking dish) just toss into a crockpot and done!
- *Sprinkle more cheddar cheese on the top prior to baking to add some extra cheesy goodness!
- Serve with tortilla chips, or veggie sticks such as carrots and celery