When I was a kid, we would make chip dip from dried Lipton Onion Soup Mix and blend it into cream cheese with a hand mixer. Somehow even after being refrigerated, it stayed soft enough to dip a chip in. It wasn't until my adult years that I encountered using sour cream as the base for dips. I can't recall the last time I made a dip with cream cheese as the base (although I've used it for other things.) So for those of you who make your own dips rather than buy Helluva Good...which do you prefer?
Never heard of any dip made with cream cheese before. I always use sour cream with the Lipton soup mixes. The dip never lasted a day.
I haven't made a dip using soup mix for many years; I got into the habit of buying the "pre-made" dips in the grocery refrigerator section instead. I was trying to remember which dips I use cream cheese for, and all I can think of is spinach/artichoke dip. Sour cream mixes easier and makes a creamier dip IMO.
I did a little research, and the modern box of Lipton Onion Soup Mix says to use sour cream. There are recipes on the web that use cream cheese, but they combine it with sour cream. Lipton's Onion Soup Mix was invented in 1954 and 2 years later "someone" invented California Dip combining the soup mix with sour cream, and Lipton ran with it. There was already a recipe for California Dip that combined cream cheese and Roquefort with California Sauterne wine, mayonnaise, salt, Worcestershire sauce, cayenne, and garlic salt, so maybe that's why we used cream cheese. But Lipton's original recipe never called for it.
I seldom use cream cheese.. The Lipton soups I cook with - dips I buy which is next to never. I do like My own avocado dip though