Cheddar Cheese Horseradish Dip

Since moving to New York, I now have four places I like to food shop: Whole Foods, Stop & Shop, DeCicco’s and Fairway Marketplace.  These shops (with the exception of Whole Foods) are all within 5 minutes of where we live.  All offer their own unique brands and style of food shopping.  Whole Foods (12 minutes away) are always offering samples of the food they carry in different cooking stations.  A couple of months ago I was looking for cheese and spotted Whole Foods in-house dips.  There was an assortment of dips near the cheese counter and I’m usually not one to sample but the titles caught my eye and one of them was cheddar cheese horseradish dip.  I was a bit hesitant and my concerns of whether I would like it faded away once in my mouth.  I really enjoyed it and picked up a container.  The only other food store I would do this is back home where the local grocer, Pete’s Frootique also makes his in-house dips…and they are delicious with no artificial ingredients.  That’s key for me.  I can’t stand all the artificial garbage that’s injected into food.  If the first item isn’t what the package says it is then I don’t buy it – plain and simple!  I’ve educated my kids to always read the labels and the first ingredient is key.  All the gorgeous packaging in the world won’t lure me to buy if the ingredients do not make sense.  Take for example juice…if the first ingredient is water, then you know most of the contents is going to be water with a bit of real juice added.

I’ll be the first to admit that I would never have purchased fresh horseradish had it not been for the dip I sampled at Whole Foods.  My experience with horseradish is that it gets right up my nose!  I love Japanese food but not the wasabi paste.  The green stuff they put on a plate is made with horseradish because the wasabi root is difficult to cultivate which makes it also very expensive ($70 – $100 per pound). Artificial wasabi is a combination of grated horseradish, mustard and green food coloring.  That said, fresh horseradish used this way in a dip is a different kettle of fish.  I am hooked!  I also have Rick (master cheese maker) from Whole Foods Yonkers to thank, too.  He wouldn’t divulge his recipe but he did say to use lemon juice.  So, here’s my version.

Makes 3 cups

1 cup natural sour cream
1 cup cream cheese
1 cup sharp white cheddar cheese, grated
2 teaspoons fresh horseradish, finely grated (use a microplane)
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
juice of half a lemon
sea salt (to taste)

Place all ingredients in a food processor and process until it reaches a smooth consistency.  At this point, taste and season according to your liking.  I added more juice, horseradish and cheddar.

The Culinary Chase’s Note:  I was very pleased with the results and the subtle flavors of the horseradish had just enough bite without stealing the show from the dairy contents of this dip.  Feel free to experiment with the proportions and fine tune to your palate.   Enjoy!

7 Comments

  1. Ryan on February 24, 2012 at 01:57

    That seems like it will make a great spread as well as a dip. I’ll have to try it out! As always, Heather, I’m very impressed with your vision. Thanks for this!

    Ryan



  2. The Culinary Chase on February 24, 2012 at 02:54

    Thanks Ryan for your kind words. 🙂 I think this dip would also be good in pasta. Cheers!



  3. The Curious Cat on February 25, 2012 at 13:18

    Sounds delicious – you have some wicked ideas sometimes! Great inspiration! xxx



  4. pierre on February 26, 2012 at 12:58

    hello heather ! lve the horseraddish and its strong taste must be very good to dip into it !!pierre



  5. The Culinary Chase on February 26, 2012 at 13:33

    Thanks Curious and Pierre! I kid you not, this dip rocks! Cheers.



  6. Divya on February 26, 2012 at 16:39

    I haven’t ever tried using horseradish in a dip, but I do love horseradish mustard! I think I might give this a try once I can get my hands on some horseradish. Thanks for sharing.



  7. The Culinary Chase on February 27, 2012 at 03:29

    Divya, I was at a friend’s house tonight and I made this dip for them but had to use bottled horseradish as fresh wasn’t available. It was good but if you can get fresh, try it first. Cheers!