Buffalo Chicken Dip (revisited)

by Missy Tippens

Okay, I've had a crazy week. My parents, sister and brother-in-law came in town over the weekend and were here until Tuesday. I only cooked standbys that I've shared here numerous times so don't have a thing to post. And then we had a water leak disaster! I had to turn off our water Tuesday morning (I'm so thankful it made it through the weekend before the water started dripping through the ceiling in the garage!). So I haven't cooked all week. Thus, I'm reposting a fun blog from 2012. It's a throwback to my daughter being in high school! :)

Buffalo Chicken Dip in a Pinch

Missy, here. On Monday after school, my daughter called while I was out running errands to ask if she could have some friends over to spend the night to celebrate exempting finals and being done with the semester. I told her that was fine. Then I had to go into emergency prep mode!

I hurried home to clean the kitchen and try to figure out if we had anything I could cook for dinner. Nope. Once I found out she'd invited 7 girls, I headed to the grocery store. I'd been craving spaghetti all day, so I decided that would be an easy one to pull together. Here's my dad's recipe for homemade spaghetti, although I ended up buying a jar of Ragu to hurry things along.

Then I found out a few of the girls would be playing in a basketball game or playing in the band and would arrive late. So I realized I probably needed a substantial snack as well. Oh, and breakfast!

So here's my grocery trip. Sister Schubert's cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Easy, and the kids love them. Hot dog buns for quick garlic toast under the broiler. 
Beef, noodles and sauce for the spaghetti. And I had my daughter look up a recipe for a buffalo chicken dip the girls have been raving about. For that, I bought a can of chicken and block of cream cheese (already had the other ingredients).

Once I got the spaghetti sauce cooking, I tackled the dip. Here's the recipe she found on Pinterest:

1 1/2 cups cooked and shredded chicken or 1 (12 ounce) can chunk chicken, 
drained
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup Ranch dressing
1/2 cup Buffalo wing sauce (such as Frank’s Red Hot, not to be confused with 
their pepper sauce. Start with less if you want and add more to your desired 
hotness.)
3/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

I went on a hunting expedition and found my tiny slow cooker. I thought it would be perfect for a single recipe of this dip.

And, in a nod to Virginia's favorite word in cooking, I'm calling this part of the recipe a "dump dip." :)

I dumped in the cream cheese and can of chicken.

I let this melt a bit, then added the rest of the ingredients and mixed them in with a fork. A couple of hours later, I was ready for the masses!

BTW, I only used about 1/4 cup Frank's sauce, and it was plenty spicy for me.

Serve with tortilla chips. We used Scoops. A great way to feed a bunch of celebrating, hungry teenage girls!