Name: Orange and Herb Cream Cheese Dip
Prep time: 5 min
Total time: 5 min
Ingredients: 8 ounce block of cream cheese; 2 teaspoons sriracha; 1/2 green bell pepper; 4 tablespoons orange fig preserves or orange marmalade; 1/2 teaspoon oregano; 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg; 1/2 teaspoon rosemary; 2 teaspoons yellow mustard

27, Dec 2025

Orange and Herb Cream Cheese Dip

Jump to Recipe·Print Recipe·Leave a Review

Overview

When unplanned guests stop by or your entertaining timeline stalls, whip up this easy dip with a complex flavor. Nobody has to know it took less than 5 mins. 😉 If you’re not a fan of mustard, don’t let that put you off. With the ratios of this dip, most people don’t even recognize it as a flavor, but it cuts through the heavy, fatty flavor of the cream cheese so the other notes can sing.

Flavor Notes

High Notes: Citrus and vinegar (from the mustard)
Mid Notes: Cream Cheese
Deep Notes: Nutmeg

Orange and herb cream cheese dip in a bowl with crackers fanned out around the base

Backstory

What is the old saying? Poverty is the source of ingenuity? Something like that. Well in this case, I wasn’t money poor per se, but there wasn’t much food in the house. While working my 9 to 5 job, my hunger pangs got the best of me and off to the kitchen I went. Flinging open the fridge doors, I discovered…not much! Haha

To be honest, that’s one of my favorite ways to cook. I love the creativity that comes from a limited ingredient list. I had the ubiquitous block of cream cheese and a half-eaten jar of orange fig preserves from Aldi staring back at me. “This will be good,” I thought as I plunked it on the counter, “but it could be better.” You only get to eat so many meals in your life, so you might as well make them count, right?

I often compare food flavors to musical notes. I’ve been playing the piano since I was about 6 years old, and the interplay of harmonies has always fascinated me. A good dish is like a complex chord: several flavors and textures you can taste simultaneously or in rapid succession all from the same bite. “So how can I make this a full chord of flavor?” I thought.

First, I decided it needed a palate-cleansing mix of herbs. Oregano and rosemary have an astringent quality that I often compare to mouthwash. That was better, but still not quite right.

“It could use some heat,” I thought. Enter sriracha. This is my favorite ingredient for upping the Scoville score because it is a nice, flavorful heat that pairs well with almost everything. It’s just as at home with a Chinese dish as it is in Cajun food. This was starting to taste pretty good!

The orange provided a nice high note, but mixed with the figs, it was a little more mellow than usual. Add that to cream cheese, and the zing virtually vanished. It needed something to make it come to life. Enter my go-to ingredient for parsing flavors: yellow mustard.

Now, I love yellow mustard as a flavor, but I know it can be quite divisive. Some people adore it, while others give it a wide berth. Here’s my hot take: when used in the right ratios, it is an unsung hero. It provides clarity to other flavors, especially deep, fatty flavors like bacon or cream cheese.

Oftentimes a cream cheese-based concoction is like a piano player who keeps the sustain pedal down the whole time. No matter how beautiful the melodies or chords are, the constant reverberation turns it all to mud. With nothing to cut through the fat, this can happen with your food. Mustard, vinegar, lemon juice, and other acidic ingredients yank that sustain pedal up so you can taste each note.

Trying to be all healthy, I considered eating my concoction on a slice of green bell pepper instead of a cracker. Yeah, well that sounds good, but it was too much. I liked the flavor combo and the crunch, but the ratio was off. So instead, I decided to dice it up and mix it in.

Spooning a bit onto a cracker, I realized it was almost there. But, there were no bass notes. Nothing that lingered. Here’s where the nutmeg entered. Unlike sriracha, whose heat is felt in the mouth and on the tongue, nutmeg is experienced at the back of the throat. Adding a dash of that gave the dip an unmistakable after burn that I really enjoy.