Cranberry Cream Cheese Dip

Cranberry Cream Cheese Dip is perfect for any winter party, and your family will swoon over this dip made with fresh cranberry salsa. Serve with low-carb pita bread, jicama slices, celery, or other dippers of your choice.

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This Cranberry Cream Cheese Dip starts with the amazing recipe for Trina’s Cranberry Salsa that I’ve been making for Thanksgiving ever since Trina gave me the recipe many years ago! I love the fresh cranberry salsa, and it’s gotten nothing but raves on the blog. And you can freeze the cranberry salsa if you have any leftovers and make this cranberry dip with cream cheese later! 

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 for Thanksgiving and then turning some of it into this fun cranberry cream cheese dip to serve in December! And I promise this will disappear quickly at any kind of get-together!

What ingredients do you need for this recipe?

(This is only a list of ingredients; please scroll down for complete printable recipe. Or if you use the JUMP TO RECIPE link at the top of the page, it will take you directly to the complete recipe.)

• cream cheese 
• olive oil (for spraying baking sheet and dish)
• Trina’s Cranberry Salsa
• low-carb pita bread, celery sticks, or jicama sticks to scoop up the dip

Can you omit cilantro in the Cranberry Cream Cheese Dip?

If you’re not a fan of the taste of cilantro, just skip the cilantro when you make the Cranberry Salsa and use a little more green onion.

What to eat with the Cranberry Cream Cheese Dip:

When I first made this cream cheese dip with cranberry salsa, I used toasted low-carb tortillas to scoop up the dip. That tastes good, but through the years I ended up thinking the toasted tortillas weren’t sturdy enough. Now I would eat this with toasted low-carb pita bread cut into triangles, or if I wanted something even lower in carbs I’d love it with jicama sticks or celery. People who don’t care about carbs would enjoy it with crackers as well.

How low in carbs is this Dip?

Even though the cranberries have some carbs, this tasty dip alone only has about 4 net carbs per serving. Serve it with jicama or celery sticks for the lowest carb option.

How to make Cranberry Cream Cheese Dip:

(This is only a summary of the steps for the recipe; please scroll down for complete printable recipe. Or if you use the JUMP TO RECIPE link at the top of the page, it will take you directly to the complete recipe.)

1. First make Trina’s Cranberry Salsa; you can see the steps for that above, but see that recipe for complete ingredients and instructions.
2. Use fresh whole cranberries
3. Carefully remove seeds from fresh Jalapenos.
4. Chop Jalapenos, slice green onion, and chop cilantro if using.
5. Chop the cranberries in food processor, add sweetener, and pulse to combine.
6. Then add chopped cilantro, chopped green onions, chopped Jalapenos, lime juice, and olive oil and pulse until combined.
7. To make Cranberry Cream Cheese Dip, first choose an attractive oven-proof baking dish and brush with olive oil.
8. Put a block of cream cheese in the dish and bake about 10 minutes, or just until it looks slightly melted. (You can also use the microwave for a shorter time if you prefer.
9. Cover the cream cheese with Trina’s Cranberry Salsa.
10. Serve hot with low-carb pita bread, celery sticks, jicama sticks crackers, or other 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 Cream Cheese Dip

Prep Time 25 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 35 minutes

This Cranberry Cream Cheese Dip is the perfect appetizer for any winter party. And if you make fresh cranberry salsa for Thanksgiving, you can use the leftovers to make this tasty dip!

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, crackers, celery sticks, or jicama slices to scoop up the dip

Instructions

1. First make Trina's Cranberry Salsa. (See recipe for Trina's Cranberry Salsa for complete list of ingredients and instructions.)
2. Use fresh whole cranberries.
3. Carefully remove seeds from fresh Jalapenos.
4. Chop Jalapenos, slice green onion, and chop cilantro if using.
5. Chop the cranberries in food processor, add sweetener, and pulse to combine.
6. Then add chopped cilantro, chopped green onions, chopped Jalapenos, lime juice, and olive oil and pulse until combined.
7. To make the Cranberry Cream Cheese Dip, first choose an oven-proof baking dish and spray lightly with olive oil
8. Place unwrapped block of cream cheese in the baking dish
9. 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.
10. You can also put the block of cream cheese into a microwave to soften on high for 3-4 minute
11. To serve, spoon a generous amount of cranberry salsa over the softened cream cheese
12. Serve with pita chips, tortilla chips, crackers, celery sticks, or jicama slices to scoop up the dip
13. This will go quickly at a party, 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, crackers, 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 Cream Cheese Dip 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 for cream cheese dip made with cranberry salsa was first posted in 2011 and I’ve made it for many holiday parties since then. It was last updated with more information in 2024.

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