Pucker Up for This Quick and Easy Fried Pickle Dip

Forget putting an egg on it—these days, our culinary directive is to put a pickle in it. Whether it's store-bought chips and popcorn, homemade fried chicken and rice, or a simple sandwich, pickles and their brine add a lip-smacking tartness, saltiness, and tiny bit of sweetness to so many foods. In this recipe, a jar of pickles works its magic on a creamy sour cream and mayo dip, which we punch up with ranch dressing mix, fresh dill, and lots of chopped pickles. And while we could have stopped there, we take it a step further with breadcrumbs that are toasted in a combination of butter and pickle juice—a nod to fried pickles—before being used to top the dip.

The dip calls for easy–to-find ingredients (including powdered ranch dressing mix) and comes together in just 15 minutes, with a brief chill in the fridge. It's easy to whip up at the last minute for a party, happy hour, or even dinner. (We're here to share recipes, not to judge what you eat for dinner.) Read on for tips on making and serving the dip, as well as the recipe from our Alabama-based colleague Jasmine Smith. Then grab some wavy pickle-flavored potato chips and dig in.

6 Tips for the Best Pickle Dip

Opt for sour cream and mayo for creaminess. Jasmine initially tested the recipe with cream cheese, but found that the cream cheese made the dip too thick and masked the flavor of the pickles. A combination of sour cream and mayonnaise gives this dip just the right balance of tanginess and creaminess and allows the pickle flavor to shine.

Reach for ranch dressing mix. Instead of making the ranch dip base from scratch, we opted for the excellent shortcut of ranch dressing mix. Be sure to choose ranch dressing mix, such as Hidden Valley Original Ranch Dressing and Seasoning Mix, not ranch dip mix—in our testing, the latter proved to be overly salty when paired with the other ingredients in this dip.

Brighten it up with fresh dill. While you could technically use dried dill in this dip, chopped fresh dill provides a welcome burst of freshness and brings out the dilly flavor of the pickles.

Toast the breadcrumbs in butter and pickle juice. We put the fried in this fried pickle dip with panko that's crisped up in a combination of butter and pickle juice. In testing, Jasmine found that the best way to keep the panko crispy was to add pickle juice in two steps: once at the beginning and once at the end. Keep cooking and stirring the breadcrumbs until they are deeply golden, but keep an eye on them so they don't burn. Once the breadcrumbs are browned and cooled slightly, you'll stir some of them in and put more on top so you'll get crunchy bits in every bite. Make sure to really mound up the ones on top so some of the crumbs aren't touching the dip. You might have some leftover breadcrumbs, which you can use to refresh the dip as people dig through the crunchy layer—or use them as a topper for pasta or salad.

Make it your own. While this dip is perfect exactly as is, you can mix up the flavors by using different varieties of pickles or by adding seasonings and spices such as mustard seeds, black pepper, and red pepper flakes.

Serve it with sturdy chips. During our taste tests of this dip, we dubbed it, "Chip Breaking Dip," because we kept shattering chips as we attempted to scoop up too-big bites. So grab the sturdiest potato chips you can find for this dip—we recommend dill pickle–flavored chips for even more pickle flavor, though salt and vinegar or just plain chips would also be delicious with it. One more tip: Consider making a double batch of this dip, because it disappeared very quickly from the test kitchen.