Hot Crab Artichoke Dip Recipe: How to Serve Crab Artichoke Dip

Crab artichoke dip is an appetizer consisting of finely chopped artichoke hearts, cooked crabmeat, cream cheese, mayonnaise, sour cream, and various spices. The dip may also feature additional ingredients, such as roasted red peppers, hot sauce, capers, and green onion.

Cooks typically serve the dip warm or chilled alongside tortilla chips, crudités platters, or crusty chunks of bread.

Crab artichoke dip is easy to make, but here are a few tips that can help you along the way:

1. 1. Source the right crabmeat. You can purchase lump crabmeat in canned form or fresh from some fish counters. Whichever you select is a matter of personal preference, but you’ll need to cook fresh-picked crab before adding it to the dip. (Note that imitation crab is not, as the name might imply, vegetarian. It is a form of surimi, or ground white fish.)
2. 2. Serve the dip warm or cold. To make a warm crab-artichoke dip, bake it in a hot oven until the top is crispy and golden brown and the mixture is completely warm. You can also combine the ingredients in a mixing bowl and chill until you’re ready to serve it.
3. 3. Experiment with mix-ins. Many home cooks swear by hot sauce and seafood seasoning in their crab-artichoke dip, while others go in for a deeply cheesy variation. Add fresh chopped peppers, like jalapeño or serrano, for a kick of bright heat or sweeter elements, like sun-dried tomatoes or roasted red peppers, to complement the briny sweetness of the crabmeat.

Like most dip recipes, you can enjoy crab artichoke dip with various accompaniments:

• With chips and crackers: Pita chips, crackers, or thick-cut tortilla chips are all great options for serving with crab artichoke dip. The sturdier the vessel, the better.
• With bread: Prepare crostini ahead of time, or allow guests to tear off their own pieces of fresh baguette for dipping.
• With fresh vegetables: One of the most common ways to serve crab artichoke dip is alongside a crudité platter of seasonal vegetables. Try radishes, quartered Persian cucumbers, and multicolored carrots.