Recipe Gruyère-Bacon Dip

[TastyReuben]

Gruyère-Bacon Dip
16 2-TBsp servings

Ingredients
1/2 cup chopped onion
Cooking spray
4oz shredded Gruyère cheese
1/2 cup canola mayonnaise
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp dry mustard
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
8oz block fat-free cream cheese, softened
2 TBsp chopped green onions
4 center-cut bacon slices, cooked and crumbled

Directions
1. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion to pan; sauté 5 minutes or until tender. Remove from heat.
2. Place onion in a 2-1/2 quart slow cooker coated with cooking spray. Add cheese and next five ingredients. Stir until blended. Cover and cook on LOW for 1-1/2 hours or until cheese melts, stirring after 45 minutes. Top with green onions and bacon.

Recipe courtesy of Cooking Light's Dinner's Ready cookbook.

Bacon-Gruyère Dip

• TastyReuben
• 16 Oct 2019

 

[Morning Glory]

It looks very tasty. Do you serve it hot?

Cover and cook on LOW for 1-1/2 hours

I don't understand why the low slow cooking. Cheese will melt quite quickly and there is nothing else that needs cooking other than the onions - so why this long cooking time?

Second question:
Is 'Cooking Light' meant to be low calorie meals?

 

[TastyReuben]

It looks very tasty. Do you serve it hot?



I don't understand why the low slow cooking. Cheese will melt quite quickly and there is nothing else that needs cooking other than the onions - so why this long cooking time?

Second question:
Is 'Cooking Light' meant to be low calorie meals?

Yes, I served it hot/warm, though it cooled quickly and was just fine.

I don't know about the cooking time, maybe it's just meant to give the flavors time to come together thoroughly, but I will say this: at the recommended 45-minute stir point, it was still quite lumpy in the middle, the Gruyère hadn't broken down completely, though the mixture was bubbling away around the edges. I didn't go the full 90 minutes, though - 75 minutes was plenty, and 60 probably would have been fine.

Cooking Light was a healthy cooking magazine/website that went out of business last year. They also published cookbooks. I think their website is still up.

Funny thing is, I got their magazine for a few years, made maybe 25 or so recipes from them, and to the last one, they were awful. Just simply inedible. I think I kept trying because I couldn't believe they could be so consistently bad, but they were.

The two cookbooks I just bought, though, I've already made several things from them, and they've all turned out very well, so that was a surprise. I'm making whole wheat scones later today using one of their recipes.

 

[Morning Glory]

Cooking Light was a healthy cooking magazine/website that went out of business last year.

I asked about it because I found the recipe rather odd in that it uses cooking spray (presumably - this isn't clear) to sauté the onion yet the recipe contains mayonnaise (high in fat and calories) and gruyère (high in fat and calories).

Re the cheese melting - it would melt in no time if cooked on the hob. Maybe the slow cooking is intended to improve the flavour - I;m sceptical though because the flavours are quite 'simple' - no garlic or wine, for example.

I hope you don't mind me analysing the recipe...!

 

[medtran49]

The slow cooker is probably to meld as TastyReuben wrote, but also so the cheese doesn't scorch. I told Craig this looked really good but we'd probably have to do it in our fondue set-up with the induction burner as we don't have a slow cooker.

 

[TastyReuben]

I hope you don't mind me analysing the recipe...!

Of course not, that's what we're here for!

Sometimes, with the healthier stuff, I think it's a trade-off. They did specify canola mayo as opposed the the regular full-fat mayo, and no-fat (as opposed to low-fat) cream cheese, so maybe that makes up for the Gruyère - in a lot of their other recipes that use cheese, they opt for a low-fat version. Cook's preference I guess. I'll note that over the years, I've had little issue with subbing in a low-fat thing, but a fat-free thing is intolerable.

I told Craig this looked really good but we'd probably have to do it in our fondue set-up with the induction burner as we don't have a slow cooker.

I think that would be fine. There's no liquid in this, so just keep it low, I'd think. I think you could even do it in the microwave - I have a quickie fondue recipe from Pepin that he does in the microwave, and I was suspicious, but when I made it, it was pretty good.

 

[Morning Glory]

canola mayo as opposed the the regular full-fat mayo

I didn't realise canola mayo was less fat. Canola is an oil (rapeseed oil in the UK) and has the same calories as any oil you choose to use to make mayonnaise. So - is 'canola mayo' some sort of brand name in the US which is lower calories?

 

[TastyReuben]

I didn't realise canola mayo was less fat. Canola is an oil (rapeseed oil in the UK) and has the same calories as any oil you choose to use to make mayonnaise. So - is 'canola mayo' some sort of brand name in the US which is lower calories?

Here's some info I found in an article from the Food Network:

"Canola and olive oil mayonnaise are available as “healthier” options. Both are higher in heart-healthy monounsaturated fats, but the calories are the same. Additionally, olive oil mayos tend to combine olive oil with other vegetable oils so that the flavor isn’t too overpowering. Here is the nutrition info per tablespoon

Canola oil mayo: 100 calories, 11 grams fat, 0.5 grams saturated fat

Regular mayo: 90 calories, 4 grams fat, and 1.5 grams saturated fat"

So it looks like the main benefit is the reduction in saturated fat, and "canola mayo" is not a brand name, just mayo made using canola oil.

For the record, I did not use canola oil mayo in mine.