Copycat Bitchin Sauce Recipe – Chipotle Flavored Dip

One of my wife’s absolute favorite dips is a dip called Bitchin’ Sauce! It’s a magical almond-based dip. We particularly like the chipotle version of the Bitchin’ Sauce, which is great as a dip for fries or vegetables, but is also very suitable as a spread for sandwiches.

The problem with Bitchin’ Sauce is that it can be quite difficult to find, and when you can find it, it’s not exactly the cheapest dip.

So I went on a little quest and tried to make a homemade version! Read on to see how I reverse engineered the decline and the results!

What is Bitchin’ Sauce?

Bitchin’ Sauce not only has a great name, it also makes a great dip. One of our family favourites! The dip is an almond based dip which gives it a really nice creamy texture. Then they add many spices and flavors depending on the variety.

Our favorite is the Chipotle variety!

We generally buy our Bitchin’ Sauce from Costco when we can since it’s the best deal, but smaller containers are now available at most grocery stores. I think you can also buy it directly from the site, although I’ve never tried that.

Main ingredients in Bitchin’ Sauce

I had high hopes of being able to make a homemade version of this sauce since the container just doesn’t have a large list of ingredients. Here are the basics listed on the container.

• Water
• almonds
• Chipotle peppers
• nutritional yeast
• soy sauce
• lemon juice
• Garlic
• Salt
• oil
• spices (difficult)

Of course, the magic is in the mixing, but it seemed like a fun project to try!

How to reverse engineer a recipe

I should start this process by not contacting anyone at Bitchin’ Sauce about this recipe. I just winged it.

When reverse engineering a recipe, it’s important to remember that ingredients in recipes must be listed in order of importance. The fact that water is the first ingredient in Bitchin’ Sauce means that if you string all the ingredients together, the largest ingredient by weight would be water. No wonder for a bath. Next come almonds, followed by oil.

you have the idea Going through the ingredients this way can help you get the basics of a recipe down, but there’s a lot of mystery here.

First off, there is no indication of how big the difference is between two ingredients. So there could be one gram more water than almonds or twice as much water as almonds. Hard to say!

Second, they don’t tell you how to process the ingredients. Are the almonds blanched? are they peeled Do you gut the Chipotles? In what order do you mix everything together? Do you cook it or is it raw?

Third, what the heck are spices? It’s a generic ingredient and could be dozens of things.

To prepare my homemade version, I first tried to set the consistency. Bitchin’ Sauce is thick and barely pourable, but is easy to dip and spread. I got pretty close by pureeing the almonds and water and then, with the blender running, add the oil and then most importantly, chill the dip to thicken it up a bit. (The dip is usually sold in the refrigerated section of stores, so that made sense to me).

Once I got the consistency, I worked on the flavor. That was the much harder part. I tried different amounts of the salty and spicy ingredients while trying to keep track of the order on the ingredient list. That was tricky and to be honest my version isn’t 100% there but pretty close.

Can you tell the difference between homemade and store-bought bread?

In short, yes. My wife could tell the difference right away because it’s her favorite dip. On a blind taste test, I had it harder and thought they were actually pretty close.

Whatever the case, the homemade version is worlds cheaper and a very good dip, although not 100% the same as the store-bought version. I think it’s 95% there.

How to Make Copycat Bitchin’ Sauce

This process is pretty simple, but it helps to have a really good blender. A powerful blender prepares the almonds into a smooth dip, emulsifying everything well.

To prepare the sauce, all you have to do is blanch the almonds. I just boiled mine for a few minutes, then cooled and peeled.

While peeling almonds isn’t much fun, the recipe only takes about a cup of it. If you can find raw, peeled almonds at your store, you can use those. It’s also possible that the Bitchin’ Sauce folks used unshelled almonds, but I think that would give the dip a very dark color, and I feel like I got pretty close to the color, so I’m guessing that they use peeled almonds.

Now you need tons of tasty ingredients. Most of them are very savory, salty, spicy or savory!

The order in which you mix the ingredients is actually important. You want to make a good base with the almonds and water, and then add the flavors. Finally, with the mixer running, drizzle in the oil.

Of course, you can customize the flavors to your liking, which is a nice thing about DIY. If you want it to be lighter, add more lemon. Want it spicier? You know what to do: More chipotle and cayenne!

The dip looks a bit runny after mixing, but can be set very well after cooling in the fridge.

As you can see, after a cooling period, my dip is a little lighter in color than the original dip, but is speckled with the same flakes and has a very similar texture. The taste is also very close.

What should you serve with this sauce?

There is a wide variety of things you can serve with this dip. I usually just serve it with a big bag of tortilla chips, but crunchy veggies like celery or carrots also taste really good in the dip.

Alternatively, you can spread this dip on a good sandwich, like these steak sandwiches!

What do you think? Are you a fucking sauce fan? Would you try a homemade version?!

My copycat bitchin’ sauce recipe

Here are a few more great recipes to try!