Easy Homemade French Onion Dip (Better than a mix!)

Ready to wow your friends and family with an irresistible, real food appetizer? This homemade French onion dip is a total game-changer – it’s WAY more flavorful than using a mix and takes just a few minutes to make with 5 simple ingredients. Serve this mouthwatering dip at your next get-together and watch it disappear – it’s so good, it will make you wonder why you ever bought the packaged mix!

Onion dip is one more thing that I had NO idea growing up that you could make at home. You bought little containers of onion dip or if you were really fancy, you’d “make” it with a packet of french onion soup mix and sour cream.

It was probably my favorite dip, though – I remember many a college dinner that consisted of a container of onion dip, potato chips and a couple carrot sticks. (In my defense, I started experimenting with cooking, especially stir-frying vegetables, in the last years of college, so the crap-food phase didn’t last that long.)

So making homemade onion dip didn’t occur to me until I saw a recipe in a magazine a few years after Brian and I got married.

Whaaaat? Head blown completely off.

I tried it and it tasted WAY better than anything I had from a store and it was so easy! And only took a few ingredients!

Over the years I’ve tweaked the recipe to use only five ingredients, if you don’t count salt and pepper, including onions, sour cream and cream cheese.

Let’s compare that to the ingredients listed on the back of the packaged dried onion dip mix:

Onions (deyhydrated), salt, cornstarch, onion powder, sugar, corn syrup, hydrolyzed soy protein, caramel color, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, monosodium glutamate, yeast extract, natural flavors, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate

Or the prepared dips I used to get in the little containers:

Water, Sunflower Oil and/or Canola Oil, Onions, Whey Protein Concentrate, and less than 2% of the following: Modified Corn Starch, Salt, Sugar, Monosodium Glutamate, Onion Powder, Caramel Color, Natural Flavors, Glucono Delta Lactone, Lactic Acid, Xanthan Gum, and Datem.

Wow. Okay.

Let’s see what ingredients we actually need from our fridges and pantries to make the most amazing tasting French onion dip ever!

Recipe Ingredients

Ingredient Notes

Only two of the ingredients we need are listed in the store bought versions:

• Onions – white or yellow onions are great with this and sweet onions work well, too.
• Salt

In addition to these, we’ll use:

• Olive oil – to caramelize the onions that will produce sweetness and browning (so we can do away with the added sugars, soybean oil, and caramel color, as well as the additives and preservatives).
• Garlic and ground black pepper – perfectly compliments the onions.
• Cream cheese – this is what gives the dip it’s creamy texture and flavorful taste.
• Sour cream – helps thin the dip and adds a bit of tang to the dip.

How to Make Homemade French Onion Dip

You need to take just three steps to make this dip in only about 15 minutes total time:

1. Cook the onions in olive oil with the garlic, salt and pepper over medium heat until lightly brown and caramelized, about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
2. Add the room temperature cream cheese and sour cream to the caramelized onions and stir off heat until melted and combined.
3. Transfer to a serving bowl and refrigerate at least 30 minutes for the flavors to develop before serving.

Recipe Tips & Substitutions

Tip 1: Too thick dip? The dip is the perfect texture when made with softer Neufchatel cream cheese and sour cream served 30 minutes to an hour after making. The dip will harden in the fridge and may be too thick if using regular cream cheese. Simply gently heat the dip with a tablespoon or so of milk, stirring until dipping consistency.

Tip 2: Use more sour cream. If you’d like you can use 1/3 less cream cheese and 1/3 more sour cream for a looser consistency after refrigerating.

Substitution 1: Substitute mayo for the sour cream. If you don’t have sour cream you can substitute an equal amount of mayonnaise since they have the same consistency. You’ll lose the tang from the sour cream, so you may want to add a teaspoon of vinegar.

Substitution 2: Substitute yogurt for the sour cream. This will cause the dip to thicken even more, actually, so if you use this, add a tablespoon of milk. The flavor will be different with the more pronounced tang from the yogurt.

Substitution 3: Use 1 teaspoon garlic powder in place of the fresh garlic. However, don’t substitute onion powder for the fresh onions – that is what makes this dip!

If you’ve never had true, whole food onion dip, the flavor of this recipe may just blow your head off, too. Real, fresh chopped caramelized onions takes this dip to a whole new level – really.

Looking for more easy, real food recipes like this to make instead of store bought? Try my Homemade Frugal Pesto Recipe (without pine nuts!), Homemade Mayonnaise Recipe-Two Easy Methods here, or this Quick Honey Sweetened Homemade Ketchup – all made in just minutes!

I hope you love this homemade French onion dip! If you make it, be sure to leave a recipe rating so I know how you liked it!

More Delicious Dip Recipes To Try

• Slow Cooker Tex-Mex Dip (Instant Pot and Stove Top, Too)
• Homemade Hummus without Tahini
• White Bean Dried Tomato Dip Recipe
• Creamy Feta Dip and Dressing

 This recipe has been updated – it was originally published in January of 2016.