Taco Dip = Lotsa Happy People

My mom used to be the salad department manager at a fancy local restauarnt. It was connected to a Holiday Inn and she would design all salads and dips for the restaurant and hotel catering parties. Once she left the restaurant, she took a lot of what she made at the restaurant with her. Luckily one of these dips is the Taco Dip. I know this is no secret recipe, as I have heard others talk about it before on the WC board. However, only my mom would worry about having the right amount of different colors on the dip! I was told I needed a little red, green, orange and black and in a certain order of course! She cracks me up but she does make a great presentation (so good in fact that she did the food for our wedding). This Taco Dip is a favorite among my ILs. They had never seen or heard of this dip before I arrived at their family Christmas eight long years ago (god, was it really that long ago!). This is requested every year and every year my mom calls to make sure I "have enough color" on my dip.

This year, I made it more WW friendly, which was easy to do with this dip! I used FF sour cream, FF refried beans, FF cheddar cheese and low sodium taco seasoning. I was skeptical at first when my mom let me know what I could substitute (she made the same thing for a dinner party last weekend with these substitutions) but I of course listened to my catering knowledge of a mother and made it using all fat free ingredients. You could of course make it with all regular ingredients, no fat free, as I have in the past.



Taco Dip
(Source: My Mama)

2 cans fat free refried beans (the small cans)
8 oz fat free sour cream
1/2 packet of taco seasoning
fat free cheddar cheese, diced scallions, sliced black olives, seeded/diced tomatoes to garnish with

Spread beans in an 8x8 dish. I always use one of those metal disposable pans so I can just toss it when we go to a party.
Mix the taco seasoning with the sour cream. You may use more or less taco seasoning depending on your tastes. Add a little at a time because it's hard to take out too much seasoning than needing to add more. Trust me, I know this from experience. If your sour cream is bright orange, it has too much taco seasoning in your sour cream and your guests will need some water!! :o) Spread the sour cream over the beans.


Here are the steps my mom stresses for garnishing:
sprinkle cheese over the dip mixture
sprinkle drained black olives next
sprinkle diced tomatoes over next (de seed them so they don't make the dip soggy)
diced scallions last



Of course I won't tell if you go out of order or gasp! add more toppings or decide you don't want to use all of these garnishes. LOL! :o) My mom just really cares abouthow people receive her dishes, and I think that is great! I hope that I make her proud most of the time (please don't tell her I posted pics with paper plates though! LOL!)

I serve this with Tostitos scoops but I also bring celery and carrots too. That keeps points down and gives me my "crunch."

Serving size: a good scoop!
Points Per Serving: 1-2 POINTS per scoop (depending on scoop size of course)

Don't forget to add points for tositos (try baked!)


Oh and while I am thinking about my mom and her food style, here are some pics from our wedding. This is our food table that my mom put together. We loved it! It was perfect.

Here are our salads, watermelon/fruit basket and note the taco dip? :o)

Here is the cheese and meat tray.