My lemon pea dip, sprinkled with some spring onion to serve. You can see the cashew nuts haven't been fully blended in to preserve some of the dip's texture.

My experimentation with dips arose from attending a few too many dessert or 'wine & cheese' nights where I often left feeling like I had overindulged.

Although I was always tempted to bake a sweet treat to share for these occasions, I began to take a selection of homemade dips, crackers and crudites (vegetable sticks!) instead.

When I first served this dip, the girls thought it was guacamole because it was so intensely green, and looked pretty creamy. Despite this, there weren't any complaints after tasting the dip!

After a while the girls came to expect this healthier alternative as a way to balance out our Friday or Saturday night nibbles. In fact, it was this group (amongst others) who encouraged me to start a blog, although they were thinking more one solely for dips...

So, I dedicate this first dip post to them (Here's to you Debs, Liv, Shelby & Louise)!

Ingredients

Makes approx. 2 cups | Prep Time: 5-10 mins

  • 2 cups frozen peas (thawed, or blanched)
  • Handful of fresh mint leaves (wash prior!)
  • 1/4 cup of roasted cashew nuts (either salted or unsalted)
  • 1 Tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 Tablespoon sesame oil
  • 2 Cloves of Garlic
  • 2 Tablespoons of natural unsweetened yoghurt OR Cottage Cheese OR Ricotta OR Sour cream (optional, but helps provide smoothness and a creamier texture)
  • Zest of 1 lemon (grated)
  • Juice of 1/2 a lemon (can adjust to your taste)
  • Salt & Pepper to your taste

Instructions

  1. Place all ingredients into a food processor or blender.
  2. Pulse until well blended. Depending on your preferences you can make this very smooth, or chunkier if you like texture in your dips.
  3. Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.
  4. Serve with crudites, crackers, tortilla or pita chips, breadsticks etc.

Notes

  • Salt & Pepper: You can obviously adjust this to suit your tastes or what you are serving e.g. if your bread is covered with salt flakes you can dial down the salt in the recipe.
  • Cashews: If you have cahsew butter you can sub out the cashew nuts for 1.5 tablespoons of cashew butter.
  • Yoghurt or Sour Cream: if you want to make this vegan, you can substite this for silken tofu, or leave out altogether.