Ina Garten Swears By This Spice In Her Famous Onion Dip

When Ina Garten purchased a specialty food store in 1978, she had no professional food experience. After making Barefoot Contessa successful and perfecting a few recipes, she sold the store and decided to write "The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook," which was published in 1999 and became a best-seller. Some of the recipes from this first cookbook (she has more than a dozen now) are so irresistible that home cooks across the country are still using them more than 20 years later. One of the most popular is pan-fried onion dip, which gets a surprising kick of heat from the addition of cayenne pepper.

In a recent Facebook post, Garten said her pan-friend onion dip recipe gets quite a bit of attention on her website when the Super Bowl approaches. For those unfamiliar with the recipe, Garten noted that the caramelized onion dip calls for adding ¼ teaspoon of cayenne pepper to the vegetable while it's sautéing. This small amount adds just enough heat that it still pulls through after the cream cheese, mayonnaise, and sour cream are added. That's because the cayenne pepper has a high rating of 30,000 to 50,000 Scoville heat units (SHU). By comparison, poblano peppers have a range of 1,000 to 1,500 SHU, while jalapeño peppers range from 2,500 to 10,000 SHU.

It seems that almost everyone who makes Ina Garten's pan-fried onion dip just can't get enough. In an older Facebook post reminding fans about the dip, Garten commented, "People tell me that my Pan-Fried Onion dip is so addicting that they've made it for a party, eaten the whole thing before the party started, and had to make it again!" A commenter in a Reddit thread of onion dip suggestions said, "Ina Garten's [pan-fried] onion dip is another suggestion that will knock your socks off."

However, you don't have to follow the recipe to a T. Some people are sensitive to the spiciness of the cayenne pepper, especially if they have a health condition like fibromyalgia. Since the main difference between cayenne and chili powder is that chili powder is made with a combination of peppers, it could be an option with less heat, depending on the specific ingredients. Sweet paprika, though, is one of the best cayenne pepper substitutes. Its primary ingredient is red bell peppers, which have 0 SHU. Using sweet paprika will give the dip a mild, peppery flavor without significant heat.

It's easy to adjust other parts of the recipe to your liking, too. Some people reduce the amount of oil used to sauté and caramelize the onions in order to cut back on the fat content. You could even use low-fat cream cheese, mayo, and sour cream ingredients. Additionally, you can allow the onions to caramelize even longer than the 20 minutes Garten recommends without burning them.