Recipe: Cheesecake Fruit Dip

Happy Memorial Day! Later today we are going over to my parent's house for a family dinner and yesterday I was perusing the Aldi for something fun to bring along with us. They had some great looking keto-friendly-fruit (berries) for super cheap (which, let's be honest, that's why we love Aldi!). So I grabbed a bunch (all for under $5) and decided to come up with a fruit dip that would compliment it.

I used to create a fruit dip that was [delicious, but] chock full of sugar that was cream cheese, cool whip and sweetened condensed milk. Every once and a while, I would try to reign in the sugar by buying "light" or sugar free cool whip, but still, the sweetened condensed milk accounted for everyone's carbs for the day (or week). Anyway, it was one of my favorite things to make for a party, and I wanted to come up with a keto friendly alternative.

On instagram somewhere, a friend posted a recipe for keto condensed milk, and I'll try that one day, but for now, this cheesecake fruit dip is a great replacement! No sugar, tastes like cheesecake, and is light and airy which makes it a perfect compliment for fruit.

Note: It's very important that your cream cheese is room temperature. I set mine out the night before with intent to make the dip in the morning. If it's not, it will be chunky in your dip and that's not as appetizing. You can soften it in the microwave, but it's not quite the same. If you do use the microwave, let it cool until it's not warm, or it'll curdle your heavy cream and ruin it.

A lot of people think fruit is off limits on keto, and that's not true! The fruits that are off limits are high fructose fruits that have too much of a net impact on the blood sugar (think; apples, bananas, mangoes). Berries are a perfect keto fruit because they only contain about 1-1.5g net carbs per berry and have very little net impact on your blood sugar.

Recipe for Cheesecake Fruit Dip:

- One block (8 oz) cream cheese, room temperature

- 1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream

- 3/4 cup Stevia (or swerve, erithritol)

- 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract

- pinch of salt

First, beat your whipping cream until it forms peaks (you are making whipped cream). If you've never made whipped cream before, it is so easy! If you have a stand mixer, make sure your bowl and whisk are completely clean (any grease will prevent the cream from whipping properly) and beat on medium speed. Keep an eye on it, you don't want it to over-churn. A hand mixer will work just fine too, just move it around a lot. You are beating air into your cream to make it "whipped."

Place your whipped cream in a separate bowl for now, and beat your cream cheese, stevia, vanilla, and a bit of cream (I just added this to make it easier to mix) until they are thoroughly combined and smooth.

Then, gently fold in your whipped cream until combined, and you're done! Chill in the fridge (covered) for at least an hour and you're good to go! This is a perfect dip to bring along with mixed berries to a party. It always disappears fast!