Cranberry Salsa Cream Cheese Appetizer

This Cranberry Salsa Cream Cheese Appetizer is perfect for any winter party, and your family will swoon over the fresh cranberry salsa. Serve with low-carb tortilla chips, low-carb pita bread, jicama slices, or other dippers of your choice. 

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This Cranberry Salsa Cream Cheese Appetizer starts with my friend Trina’s Cranberry Salsa that I’ve been making for Thanksgiving for so many years now! I love the fresh cranberry salsa, and it’s gotten nothing but raves on the blog.

So if you’re looking for a fun holiday appetizer that’s relatively healthy and about as easy as it gets, I highly recommend making cranberry salsa and then turning some of it into this fun cranberry cream cheese appetizer. And you can freeze the cranberry salsa!  Knowing it freezes well is just one more thing to love about the cranberry salsa recipe I got from my friend Trina.

What ingredients do you need for this recipe?

• cream cheese (see notes)
• olive oil (for spraying baking sheet and dish)
• Trina’s Cranberry Salsa 
• pita chips, tortilla chips, celery sticks, or jicama slices to scoop up the dip

Making the low-carb tortilla chips:

(See the recipe for other options for dippers.)

1. I used Mission Carb Balance Low-Carb Tortillas (affiliate link) to make chips to serve with this to keep it lower in carbs. But this would also be delicious with my favorite low-carb pita bread.
2. If you want to make your own low-carb tortilla chips like I did, start with low carb tortillas, cut them into triangles.
3. Spray a baking sheet with olive oil and spread out the tortilla triangles, and bake in a 400F/200C oven for 4-5 minutes.
4. Watch them carefully or you’ll get some that are a little too brown (like I did)!

Assembling Cranberry Salsa Cream Cheese Appetizer:

(Scroll down for complete recipe with nutritional information.)

1. To make the appetizer, choose an attractive oven-proof baking dish and brush with olive oil.
2. Put a block of cream cheese in the dish and bake about 10 minutes, or just until it looks slightly melted.
3. Then cover the cream cheese with Trina’s Cranberry Salsa, and serve hot with dippers of your choice.

More Recipes for Healthier Holiday Appetizers:

Check out my amazing collection of 50+ Low-Carb and Keto Appetizer Recipes from Kalyn’s Kitchen and other great blogs to get more ideas for holiday appetizer recipes that won’t be loaded with carbs!

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Yield: 8 appetizer servings

Cranberry Salsa Cream Cheese Appetizer

Prep Time 25 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 35 minutes

This Cranberry Salsa Cream Cheese Appetizer is perfect for any winter party.

Ingredients

• 8 oz. package  cream cheese (see notes)
• olive oil (for spraying baking sheet and dish)
• One cup Trina’s Cranberry Salsa (see notes)
• pita chips, tortilla chips, celery sticks, or jicama slices to scoop up the dip

Instructions

To Make Low-Carb Tortilla Chips:

1. Preheat oven to 400F/200C.  Spray baking sheet and crockery baking dish with olive oil.
2. Cut the low-carb tortillas into triangle shapes and arrange in a single layer on the sprayed baking sheet.  (You may need two baking sheets.)
3. Bake in a 400F/200C oven for 4-5 minutes. Watch them carefully or you'll get some that are a little too brown like I did!

To Make the Cranberry Salsa Cream Cheese Appetizer:

1. Follow instructions to make the cranberry salsa.
2. Choose an oven-proof baking dish and spray lightly with olive oil.
3. Place unwrapped block of cream cheese in the baking dish.
4. Put baking dish into the oven and cook just until the cream cheese is starting to soften. This will take about 10 minutes for the cream cheese to be soften enough to scoop up with a chip.
5. If you’re not turning on the oven to make tortilla chips, you can also put the block of cream cheese into a microwave to soften on high for 3-4 minutes.
6. To serve, spoon a generous amount of Trina’s Cranberry Salsa over the softened cream cheese.
7. Serve with pita chips, tortilla chips, celery sticks, or jicama slices to scoop up the dip.
8. This will go quickly so you might want to double the recipe.

Notes

The recipe for Trina’s Cranberry Salsa makes about 2 cups; I would use about half that amount (or slightly more) to make this appetizer.

Use regular or reduced fat cream cheese, whichever you prefer.

Nutritional information doesn't include tortilla chips, pita bread, celery sticks, or jicama slices used to scoop up the dip.

Kalyn’s version of this recipe is adapted from ideas from several sources.

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

8

Serving Size:

1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 143Total Fat: 13gSaturated Fat: 6gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 5gCholesterol: 30mgSodium: 171mgCarbohydrates: 6gFiber: 1gSugar: 3gProtein: 2g

Nutrition information is automatically calculated by the Recipe Plug-In I am using. I am not a nutritionist and cannot guarantee 100% accuracy, since many variables affect those calculations.

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Low-Carb Diet / Low-Glycemic Diet / South Beach Diet Suggestions:
To make this Cranberry Salsa Cream Cheese Holiday Appetizer suitable for a low-carb diet or phase 2 or 3 of the original South Beach Diet, make the salsa with low-carb sweetener and use celery or jicama for dippers or low-carb pita or tortillas to make the chips. There are some carbs in the cranberries even when it’s made with a low-carb sweetener, so this would be a limited food for South Beach or other low-carb diet plans.

Find More Recipes Like This One:
Use Holiday Recipes for more recipes for holidays! Use the Diet Type Index to find recipes suitable for a specific eating plan. You might also like to follow Kalyn’s Kitchen on Pinterest, on Facebook, on Instagram, on TikTok, or on YouTube to see all the good recipes I’m sharing there.

Historical Notes for this Recipe:
This recipe was first posted in 2011 and I’ve made it for many holiday parties since then. It was last updated with more information in 2022.

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