Christmas Dip will kick off the festive season in effortless style! Quick and easy to make with a focus on layering with texture, this impressive dip is sophisticated yet easy to make. Got 5 mins? Then you have enough time to pull together this cream cheese Christmas dip.
Recipes like my Thanksgiving Dip, Funfetti Dip and Honey Walnut Cream Cheese make for easy breezy entertaining.
My Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Dip, Cream Cheese Caramel Apple Dip and Halloween Dip are fun recipes that suit at different or all times of year!
Jump to:
🤍 Recipe Highlights
I have summarised the reasons why I think you will come to know and love, love this recipe in the points below:
- Super quick.
- Super easy.
- The 2 points I make above 😉
- Easy to find ingredients: be they everyday ingredients or simple ingredients, ain't nobody got time to drive to the dang specialty store just to grab some ingredients in case someone stops in. All of what you need you can get at Walmart, Tesco, Woolies, Aldi or Coles.
- Taste and texture: we use layers to create contrasting textures that combined are simply delightful.
- Sweet and savory: we have a range of flavours within the recipe from the sweet sticky honey, to the salty, roasted pistachios and chewy dried cranberries. This combination is set to impress!
- Christmas party sorted: if you are catching up with the neighbours, spending time with work colleagues or family and friends, you need a few recipes up your sleeve to whip out at this hectic time of year. This dip will work for each of those occasions.
🥗 Ingredients
The photo below is to show you everything you need to make the recipe. Please refer to the printable recipe card for detailed measurements.
As you can see, the recipe calls for:
- Cream cheese: we need 1 x 250 gram (8 ounce) block of this. Everywhere sells it from Walmart to Tesco, Woolies, Coles and your local store. If your store has a 225 gram version, that is still fine. There is not a lot of difference across this small variety in size blocks.
- Honey: we use this on top of the cream cheese as it helps bring flavour as well as the ability to have the other ingredients stick to it and keep everything together.
- Dried cranberries: easy to find and available all year round, these dried cranberries remind us of Christmas and festive fun, yet have a much longer shelf life than their fresh counterparts. Use kitchen scissors to roughly chop these so that the bits are smaller than the whole individual dried cranberry.
- Pistachios: admittedly these are one of my all time favourite (if not the top, macadamias are up there too, nuts). Bright but concealing their green pop of colour behind a mauve layer, they work well in recipes where you chop them to reveal their beauty.
- Crushed nuts: I use crushed nuts, which I purchase from the cooking and nut section called crushed or granulated nuts. These are handy as it saves taking out the food processor to chop them. Their small crunchy texture is a delightful addition to ice creams, salads and more!
- Crackers: round and robust or rye and refined, you can choose your favourite cracker to serve with this dip! It does help to have a thicker style however, as this prevents too many of them breaking as the dip is spread onto the cracker.
🍳 Instructions
Here are the step by step instructions to make the recipe. Start by grabbing the cream cheese out of the fridge ripping open the cardboard board box and peeling off the foil.
- Plate the cream cheese (Photo 1)
- Drizzle with honey (Photo 2)
- Add chopped cranberries (Photo 3)
- Add chopped nuts (Photo 4)
👩🍳 How to Make Christmas Dip
To make the dip, place the unwrapped block of cream cheese in the centre of your serving board.
Begin to bring the layers together by pouring the honey over the top, covering the surface of the cream cheese. Use a teaspoon to help you do this and flip it to use the back to allow it to spread the honey out.
Sprinkle the chopped dried cranberries out along the top of the honey, they will easily stick and don't be worried if the honey starts to slide down the sides of the cheese.
Add the chopped nuts to the top sprinkling them out to form their own layer.
- Place crackers around the sides of the dip (Photo 5)
When placing the crackers around the dip, lay them slightly away from the edges of the cream cheese. This will ensure that as the honey runs down the sides of the dip the crackers won't get soggy if it spreads slightly.
Serving Suggestions
To serve the dip, place a cheese knife at the front of it. This is necessary as we want the eaters to 'spread' the dip onto their cracker. Trying to dip their cracker into the firm albeit softened cream cheese, leads to many broken dreams (erhm crackers, haha) and we can avoid this by using the cheese knife to cut and spread the dip!
As the dip gets devoured the honey does slide down the sides a little creating a tasty kind of yum.
The honey is also the key ingredient that hold everything together in its own sweet and sticky way.
The anticipation of the bite doesn't result in disappointment as the textural combination reveals itself to be complimentary, of a unique kind of yum and oh yes, seriously delicious of course!
No one needs a thousand appetizers to get the party started, but you do need 1 dang good dip. This is it my friends, Christmas dipping is done.
How to Guide
How to Store
Store leftovers of the dip in a sealed, air tight container for up to 2 days.
It is not recommended to freeze the dip once combined as it may lead to mixed results.
Substitutions and Variations
Here are my sub ins and additions that I think you might enjoy as you read the recipe:
- You can use sultanas or raisins as an alternative to the dried cranberries if you wish.
- You can use pecans or walnuts (chopped) in place of the pistachios, if you desire to do so.
- As an alternative to the honey you can use cranberry sauce (see my Cranberry Jalapeno Dip to understand how this will look).
- You don't have to use the same crackers as me, you can use Graham crackers, gluten free crackers or your favourite.
💡 Tasty Tips
Here are my top tips and tricks so that you can get the recipe spot on from the get go:
- Use the block of cream cheese, not the spreadable tub. Due to the larger surface area of the rectangle, the dip will look better than if squashed into a tiny round circle.
- Have everything prepped and ready to go, so chopped the dried cranberries, grab a teaspoon out, chop the nuts and have a cheese knife on hand. It takes minutes to bring together and the prep helps.
- Set the crackers slightly away from the sides of the dip so that they don't come in contact with the honey and get soggy if any of it spreads.
- If one of your corners of cheese doesn't look as sharp (sometimes some of it stays in the foil), flip the block to the other side.
- Provide additional or the leftovers of the dip toppings in small bowls and plate them around the side of the dip, people can fully load their cracker and as we all know once you are sitting around the Christmas tree no one wants to have to get up to get a refill! Pop it right on the table there in front of you.
🤓 Frequently Asked Questions
What dip goes well with tortilla chips?
Salsa is a great pairing for tortilla chips as they both fall into the Mexican foods category.
What chips go with cheese?
Corn chips are good to pair with a queso dip or Cream Cheese Salsa Dip. Flavoured chips such as salt and vinegar or cheddar bring a pairing of chip, flavour and cheese.
What cheese goes with Ritz crackers?
Ritz crackers are a great cheese cracker as they are firm and robust. You can easily dip them without fear of them breaking mid dip like a thinner water cracker would do. Cream cheese works well for serving with Ritz crackers as they have a thick sturdy quality about them.
😍 More Easy Dip Recipes
We haven't gotten to the end of all options for dipping and dunking our way through life (just yet). Here are some more recipes that I think will be right up your alley:
- Brie Bread Bowl
- Gherkin Dip
- Cream Cheese Pepper Jelly
- Chili Cream Cheese Dip
- Corn Dip with Cream Cheese
- Cream Cheese Onion Dip
- Ham Dip
- Cream Cheese Spinach Dip
You find all of my dips and spreads recipes in the one location. My Grazing Platter is the perfect way to feed a crowd!
Adrianne
PIN and save the recipe for later!
Hunger still got you? You can SUBSCRIBE to receive the latest recipes, follow me on Pinterest, Instagram or Facebook.
📖 Recipe
Christmas Dip
Equipment
- 1 Serving board
- 1 Cheese knife
- 1 Teaspoon
- 1 Glass jug to chop the cranberries/nuts
- 1 Kitchen scissors to chop the cranberries/nuts
Ingredients
- 250 grams/8 oz block cream cheese Note 1
- ¼ cup/80 ml honey
- 3 tablespoon dried cranberries roughly chopped
- 3 tablespoon pistachio nuts roughly chopped
- 1 tablespoon crushed nuts
Instructions
- Cream cheese: grab the cream cheese out of the fridge, undo the cardboard box, tear off the foil and place the cheese in the centre of a serving platter.
- Honey: use a teaspoon to dollop the honey onto the cheese. Flip the spoon over and use the back of it to spread it out into a layer.
- Cranberries: sprinkle the chopped cranberries out over the top of the honey to form their own layer.
- Nuts: then sprinkle the nuts over the top of the dried cranberries to finish the layers.
- Serve and enjoy: place crackers around the sides of the dip, slightly off set from the edges. Provide a cheese knife for serving. Dig in and enjoy!
Notes
- Note 1 - Cream cheese: you will easily be able to get this at Walmart, Tesco, Aldi, Coles or Woolies etc. The blocks range from 225 grams to 250 grams which is really 'same, same'. So grab one and the one you get will be perfect. The block has more surface area for the toppings than the small tubs do, so avoid those and seek out the rectangle.
Lucy says
Am so making this it looks nice.
Adrianne says
Hope you enjoy it when you do Lucy, cheers!