Mexican corn dip, also known by “crack corn dip” is a cheesy, melty and delicious way to whip up the perfect Mexican appetizer, and is hands down the BEST dipping side dish you can make.
Perfectly balanced medium heat, this is the cheesy sweet heat dip recipe that you have been waiting for to dial up your football party dip!
This dip is made to be served hot so you get all the melty cheese in every bite. Because of that, its also easy to keep warm in a crockpot or slow cooker so you can scoop and dip all day.
Reasons why you will love this dip
It’s easy to prepare – just pop open a package of cream cheese and slice some veggies while waiting for the oven to preheat. The result is a delicious appetizer that everyone loves. And best of all, there’s no need to heat up the house because it only takes about 20 minutes to cook.
Easy prep time – This dish requires minimal effort before baking. All you need to do is chop up some veggies, combine the ingredients and spread them into a baking dish. Afterward, simply place everything inside the oven and wait for it to finish cooking. That’s it!
Quick results – Once baked, this dish comes together quickly so you won’t spend hours working away in the kitchen. In fact, most people find this is one of the best party dips that can be ready when you need it with very little planning.
Delicious flavors – There’s nothing quite like eating something warm straight off the pan. But when you pair crunchy dipping veggies, like celery, with cheesy Philly cream cheese, you end up with a mouthwatering combination that tastes incredible.
Excellent snack – You don’t necessarily need to serve this at a big gathering; however, it’s great served during game day celebrations or any event where guests might enjoy snacks between courses.
Easy cleanup – When serving this at home, you’ll likely be cleaning up after yourself anyway. One bowl, one baking dish. Done! It can be served right out of the baking dish, so it keeps it easy and clean.
Ingredients
You need the following combination of ingredients to get started – for full measurements, scroll to bottom of the post for a full recipe card with measurements and a helpful way to PRINT this recipe to make it easy in the kitchen!
- corn, drained – canned or thawed frozen corn is fine
- diced green chilies – these come in tons of flavors and feel free to dial up the heat by adding a flavor.
- diced onions – make sure these are diced tiny for bite sized flavor
- cream cheese, softened – full fat works best.
- sour cream – full fat
- garlic powder – minced garlic is also fine
- shredded mozzarella cheese
- shredded pepper jack cheese
- Choice of Chips: tortilla chips, Fritos corn chips, Ritz crackers, bagel chips
How to make Crack Corn Dip
If you want to make this dip kid safe (basically minus the heat), you can leave out the jalapenos/chilies and exchange the pepper jack cheese for Monterey jack cheese. The shredded cheeses, along with the smooth cream cheese, give this appetizer a creamy texture and is oh-so-delicious! It’s slightly spicy and can also be made with Fiesta corn Rotel tomatoes for color and additional extra flavor.
Preparation: Preheat oven to 350 and grease a small casserole dish with nonstick cooking spray.
- In a small bowl, add corn, green chilies , diced onions, cream cheese, sour cream and garlic powder. Mix well until combined.
- Stir in mozzarella cheese, and 1/4 cup pepper jack cheese.
- Spread your corn mixture into prepared pan and top with remaining 1/4 cup pepper jack cheese.
- Bake corn dip for 20 minutes until bubbly. Broil the top of the dip for 2-3 minutes to crisp and brown the cheese on top if you like.
What to serve with cracked out hot corn dip?
1. Tortilla Chips : I love serving my guests some crunchy tortillas as an accompaniment to their creamy goodness. You could use store bought but homemade ones taste better than anything else. If you don’t want to bake or air fry them yourself, then buy some from the grocery store. Here is our homemade corn tortilla chips recipe and our air fried tortilla chips recipe.
2. Guacamole: A great addition to this snack would be guacamole. It’s super simple to make at home too. Simply mash avocados with lime juice, season with salt & pepper. Add chopped tomatoes, onion, jalapenos and mix thoroughly. Serve alongside crack corn dip.
3. Salsa: Another option would be salsa. Make your own fresh salsa using ripe tomatoes, red peppers, bunch of cilantro, onions, and kosher salt. While we do not have a traditional salsa recipe on this page, we do have an amazing Air Fryer Salsa Verde (green salsa) made with all fresh air fried vegetables.
Variations
There are a handful of ingredients that can really change up this recipe. Aside form essential ingredients like corn and Philadelphia cream cheese, other ways to make this dip perfect for parties is to make it your own.
- Add proteins: Add shredded chicken breast or cooked ground beef.
- Mix up the Veggies: Add other vegetables such as bell peppers, red onions, jalapenos or green chilies all providing amazing flavor., depending on what you have available in your kitchen.
- Bring on the Cheese: If you want to get fancy, use different shredded cheese (like cheddar cheese or Mexican cheese blend), spices, herbs, or even hot taco sauce to give a deeper flavor.
- Toppings: Top with crushed tortilla chips, sliced black olives, crumbled bacon bits, grated Parmesan cheese or diced green onions (my favorite).
- Sweet corn: Use raw fresh corn on the cob, grilled, air-fried, canned corn kernels, or frozen. As long as its cooked and drained of excess moisture, it can be used.
Related Recipes
Need more dip recipes?: You can never have too many dips! Make sure you grab a few bags of Frito’s and serve along side Enchilada Dip, Black Bean & Corn Salsa, Queso Dip, Fiesta Corn Dip (cold) and Taco Dip.
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Crack Corn Dip | Sweet Heat Cheesy Dip
Ingredients
- 15 oz. corn - can, drained
- 4 oz. green chilies - can, diced
- 1/4 cup onions - diced
- 2 oz. cream cheese - softened
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1/2 cup shredded pepper jack cheese
- crackers or tortilla chips for serving
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 and grease a small casserole dish with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside.
- In a small bowl, add drained can of corn, diced green chilies, diced onions, softened cream cheese, sour cream and garlic powder. Mix well until combined.
- Stir in shredded mozzarella cheese, and 1/4 cup shredded pepper jack cheese.
- Spread corn mixture into prepared pan and top with remaining 1/4 cup pepper jack cheese.
- Bake dip for 20 minutes until bubbly on top..
- Broil for an 2-3 minutes to crisp and brown the cheese on top. Be careful not to walk away as a broiler moves quickly and easily burns when unattended.
- Serve corn dip hot with crackers.
Video
Recipe Notes
- Add proteins: Add cooked and shredded chicken breast or cooked ground beef.
- Mix up the Veggies: Add other vegetables such as bell peppers, red onions, a can of Rotel tomatoes, sliced jalapenos or green chilies all providing amazing flavor., depending on what you have available in your kitchen.
- Bring on the Cheese: If you want to get fancy, use different shredded cheese (like cheddar cheese or Mexican cheese blend), spices, herbs, or even hot taco sauce to give a deeper flavor.
- Toppings: Top with crushed tortilla chips, sliced black olives, crumbled bacon bits, grated Parmesan cheese or diced green onions (my favorite).
- Sweet corn: Use raw fresh corn on the cob, grilled, air-fried, canned corn kernels, or frozen. As long as it’s cooked and drained of excess moisture, it can be used.
Leah says
This is amazing! I used 505 green chili salsa instead of regular green chillies, and also added some smoked paprika. Might have used a little more cheese, which was a spicy cheese blend. My taste buds are in heaven!! Thank you for the recipe!
Trisha says
Yay! so happy to hear that and I love your idea on the smoke paprika for this mexican corn dip. Now thats an additive I can get behind!!
Tricia says
Have you ever made a crockpot version of this? If so, would welcome the variation on the recipe. Thank you!
Trisha says
I have not but I will and let you know – For now what I would do is combine the sour cream, cream cheese and personally a bit of whipping cream or milk to thin it up (id say about 1/3rd cup) if I was going to put in a crock pot – that way as it burns off some of the liquid its not too thick. Then I would mix everything, put in crock pot and put on low for 2-3 hours, watching it. Since you are not cooking anything as much as warming it up, it wont take too much time. Once its warm and melty, just move your crock pot to warming.
Tricia Wisbrock says
Thanks!
Trisha says
any time!
Olivia says
I am going to prepare this appetizer for Thanksgiving and there will be about 10 people attending. I was planning to triple the recipe. Should I adjust the oven temperature and cooking time? Thank you!
Trisha says
Hi Olivia! The main thing the oven does is warm up your recipe to get all hot and melty- so my concern with tripling is that you dont do a dish too deep. If you are planning on putting in a casserole dish and just making a super deep dip, it will take longer in the oven, but since its on 350, I wouldnt worry too much about it being burned. I honestly havent tripled it in the past, so its hard for me to say EXACTLY but I would just try 40 minutes and make sure its hot and melty. If possible, you could always just split between two dishes.
Jacky Fischer says
In the video, it looks like you are using cheddar cheese. The orange color doesn’t look like pepper jack or mozzarella. Can you confirm? Also I was thining of using hatch peppers to make it more spicy.
Trisha says
Hi Jacky! When I originally made the recipe, I made it with the pepperjack cheeses but when I made the video, we had a little extra mixed cheese (I think it was Monterrey Jack and Colby) from another recipe and decided to throw that in instead. The great thing about cheese is you can change the recipe to your own cheese flavors pretty easily. As noted in the article, Monterrey jack is a great substitute for kids that don’t love spice! They were both delicious!
Janice says
I made it tonight to put in a small crockpot for a secret Santa party. I’m finding it doesn’t look like a lot as it didn’t fill my small crockpot. I too think it is awfully thick. What could I add without taking flavor away to make it go farther. I really didn’t want to make another batch because I don’t think I will have enough time as the party is right after work.
Trisha says
Hi Janice! I make mine in a casserole dish, so I could see that if you put in a large crock pot the recipe wouldn’t fill out. In a casserole dish, once warmed, the cheese and cream cheese becomes melty and less solid, so its less thick hot then cold if that makes sense. Right now you are using cold cream cheese as a base and cold cream cheese is a lot harder to stir (as you can see in my video) but once its all melted out, chips dip easily, so rest your mind at ease on it being too thick for dipping. I think you just need to give it time to heat and melt properly.
As far as making it go further, you could add a little extra sour cream or even some whole whipping cream to keep the taste similar.
The biggest problem with adding like whole whipping cream is that it may go a bit further, but without upping the garlic or seasonings, it might make it a tad more bland and maybe a little runny.
I think if it were my party and I didnt have time to warm the recipe and add more, Id just add some extra sour cream.
Although, truthfully, I would probably just move it to a casserole dish so I didn’t have to try to fill the crock pot and play w/ the seasonings cause I am lazy like that, lol.
Hopefully other people will be bringing items too so hopefully you wont need as much dip as you think!
Feel free to email me directly haas.trisha@gmail.com if you want to chat about it or you have questions!!
Sherrie says
You ladies ROCK!!!! Love your recipes. Thanks so much for allowing us to share them
Sherrie Richard
Trisha says
thanks sherrie, hope you enjoyed the corn dip, its one of my favorites!
Trisha
Amy says
Could I make this ahead of time (like the day before) and refrigerate until the next day to cook it?
Trisha says
Should be totally fine to prepare next day!
Heidi says
So delicious!! Thank you for sharing!
Trisha says
Heidi, thanks for trying my recipe!
Michael Sollace says
I used a cooked lobster for a protein.Crab would be great also.A really versatile dip. Also makes great stuffing for Jalapeno poppers.