This Restaurant-Style Spinach-Artichoke Dip Is All About the Cheese

Walking into this week’s celebrity recipe showdown, I was most excited about A Cozy Kitchen’s recipe. Adrianna, the creator of the popular food blog, describes her spinach artichoke dip as similar to the ones served at two beloved American chain restaurants: Applebee’s and Houston’s. Both of these restaurants are famous for their dip; just Google their names and “spinach-artichoke dip” and you’ll find pages upon pages of copycat recipes.

At first glance, there looked to be a lot to love about this recipe: It features several umami boosters like roasted garlic and Worcestershire sauce, and is made with sautéed shallots and three types of cheese. It was also the only recipe that started with fresh spinach. Would it take home the top prize? I tried it to find out.

Get the recipe: A Cozy Kitchen’s Spinach Artichoke Dip

You’ll begin by roasting a head of foil-wrapped garlic, then allowing it to cool. The recipe recommends using about three of the roasted cloves for the dip, but feel free to use as many as you want.

Wilt fresh baby spinach over medium heat, then transfer to a paper towel or a clean kitchen towel and squeeze the excess water from the spinach. Transfer to a medium bowl. Cook the shallots in the now-empty skillet, then add to the spinach bowl.

Add the roasted garlic cloves, softened cream cheese, grated Parmesan cheese, shredded mozzarella, sour cream, red pepper flakes, Worcestershire sauce, and hot sauce to the bowl. Stir to combine, then fold in chopped artichokes. Transfer to a baking dish and top with more mozzarella, then bake until the cheese is melty. Switch the oven to broil and broil until browned on top.

There is so much going on to build flavor in this recipe that it was actually too much for my palate. It was a total flavor bomb — but not necessarily in a good way. The mozzarella on the inside and on top made the bites extremely rich, and all the umami boosters masked the flavors of the spinach and the artichoke.

This dip is for anyone who doesn’t actually want to taste the veggies, but wants a rich, deeply flavorful cheesy bite with just a whisper of spinach and artichoke. Personally, I couldn’t eat more than a few bites without palate fatigue.

1. Use an 8×8-inch baking dish: The recipe doesn’t specify, but you’ll want to use an 8×8-inch or other 2-quart baking dish.
2. Opt for raw garlic: Next time, I may use raw garlic instead of roasted to save myself the extra step.
3. Swap out the mozzarella: I think this dip would be better with a less-rich cheese, such as pepper Jack.
4. Increase the veggies: This dip had the least amount of spinach and artichokes out of the four I tried, and I found myself wanting more.

Overall rating: 7/10