Skip to main content

Water Chestnut Dip

"Spicy (but not too hot!), crunchy, flavorful dip. Tastes delicious on buttery, round crackers or finger sandwiches. The longer it is allowed to marinate, the better it tastes."

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Water chestnut and onion work together. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 319 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

The recipe

3.5 cups
Prep10 min

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Drain the water chestnuts well, then finely chop them and pat them dry with paper towels.

  2. In a medium bowl, stir together the sour cream, mayonnaise, and dry vegetable soup mix until smooth.

  3. Add the chopped water chestnuts, sliced green onion, and hot sauce, and fold everything together evenly.

  4. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for at least 1 hour so the flavors blend and the dip thickens.

  5. Stir the dip once more before serving cold with sturdy dippers.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Water chestnut + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together319 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cream + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,786 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Cream + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together10,826 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Sauce + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together10,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Water chestnut + saucetop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together124 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Cream and onion share little aroma chemistry, yet 10,826 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (water chestnut, cream, sauce):

  1. Welsh onionabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Spinachabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Lettuceabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against water chestnut, cream, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).