Looking for some great Pub Food ideas or game day snacks?! These nacho-style kettle chips are a fan-favorite at our house.

After enjoying these tangy chips at restaurants for years it was time to recreate them at home! They are so delicious and could not be easier to make. Did I mention they’re addicting too?!

Start with a bag of your favorite kettle chips – you know the extra crunchy, super sturdy kind.

We’re big fans of Cape Cod Kettle Cooked Potato Chips!

Spread them on a baking sheet and warm them in the oven for 5 minutes. This will get your chips happy and ready to be loved!

Layer them with this super easy Homemade Blue Cheese Dressing and blue cheese crumbles.

Then sprinkle the mountain of Blue Cheese Chips with crispy bacon, diced tomatoes and green onions! It’s kind of a nachos wedge salad lovefest! You can totally mix up the toppings and even the cheeses.

With football season about to get into full swing, we can’t have enough fun & easy appetizer recipes in our rotation. We served these on Super Bowl Sunday and they were a hit!

Check out our collection of Hot Party Dips for some recipe inspiration!

Don’t forget to follow us @LemonyThyme on Instagram and Facebook! And check out our latest TikTok videos and Pinterest boards too!

All my best,
xo Libby

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Blue Cheese Chips with Crispy Bacon for the Win!

Sprinkle the mountain of Blue Cheese Chips with crispy bacon, diced tomatoes and green onions! It's kind of a nachos wedge salad lovefest!

Course Appetizer, Snack

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 5 minutes minutes

Servings 6

Author Libby with Lemony Thyme

Ingredients

• 1 8 ounce bag Kettle Chips I used Cape Cod brand
• 4 strips bacon cooked crispy and chopped
• 1 cup blue cheese dressing recipe link in post
• 4 ounces blue cheese crumbles
• 2 scallions thinly sliced
• 2 roma tomatoes diced

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 425° F. Spread kettle chips on a baking sheet and warm in oven for 5 minutes. Layer with blue cheese dressing and blue cheese crumbles. Top with chopped crispy bacon, sliced scallion and diced tomatoes.

The post Blue Cheese Chips {with Crispy Bacon} for the Win! appeared first on Lemony Thyme.

Crispy baked chicken wings get dosed with the perfect sauce and a sprinkle of blue cheese.

While I’ve technically completed my 5 New Chicken Wing Recipes in 5 Weeks personal challenge, I figured there’s always room for one more. Buffalo Chicken Wings are such a classic that I wanted the recipe documented in the archives. I now have six chicken wing recipes to share and growing.

I have this vision that one day my great grandchildren will be making my recipes. They’ll call them vintage and think they’re cool ;-)

Easy Preparation

While the wings are baking at 400 degrees F. for an hour, you’ll make the buffalo sauce. It’s three ingredients: Frank’s Redhot Sauce (1/2 ~ 1-1/2 cups depending on how hot you like your wings), 1/2 cup (1 stick) of melted butter, and 2 teaspoons garlic powder; whisked together over medium heat for just a few minutes until heated through.

I start with 1/2 cup of Frank’s for “medium” wings and build from there. Nick on the other hand is more of a “hot” kind of guy.

Pour this sauce over your wings and toss. The next step is the game-changer!

Serve Them Up

After you toss your wings in the buffalo sauce, instead of serving them on a plate…pour them over a big bowl of tortilla chips and sprinkle with some crumbled blue cheese.

The extra buffalo sauce rolls off keeping the wings crispy not soggy sitting in a pool of sauce.

I’m definitely a crispy wing kind of girl.

When the wings are gone you’ll have a heavenly bowl of buffalo chips!

You’ll definitely want to serve with a side of Homemade Blue Cheese Dressing and Homemade Buttermilk Ranch.

I’m telling you this is a game changer.
Thanks RG for the chip tip all those years ago!

If you’re looking for all these amazing flavors stirred up into one dish, then you’ve got to try our Buffalo Chicken Dip recipe! It remains a family favorite and a game-day must!

How do you serve your chicken wings? I’d love for you to comment below and share your family favorites. And don’t forget to subscribe by email so you don’t miss a new recipe.

All my best, Libby

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Buffalo Chicken Wings

This post is a lot more about how I like to serve Buffalo Chicken Wings then it is about how to make them. After you toss your wings in the buffalo sauce, instead of serving them on a plate…pour them over a big bowl of tortilla chips and sprinkle with some crumbled blue cheese. You'll end up with a big bowl of buffalo chips!

Course Entree or Appetizer

Prep Time 5 minutes minutes

Cook Time 1 hour hour

Servings 4

Ingredients

For Wings

• 2 pounds chicken wings flats & drummettes separated
• 1/2 ~ 1 1/2 cups Frank's Redhot Sauce adjust according to how hot you like your wings
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder

For Serving

• tortilla chips
• blue cheese crumbles
• blue cheese & ranch dressing
• carrot & celery sticks

Instructions

For Wings

• Preheat oven to 400° F. Line baking sheet with aluminum foil and place a rack in pan. Arrange chicken wings in single layer on rack. Bake for 1 hour until wings are crispy.
• Meanwhile prepare sauce by melting butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add in garlic pwoder and desired amount of Frank's Redhot Sauce. 1/2 cup = mild. 1 cup = mild/medium. 1 1/2 cups = medium/hot. Whisk until combined and warmed through.
• When wings are crispy, remove to a bowl. Pour wing sauce over top and toss wings to coat.

To Serve

• Fill a bowl with tortilla chips. Pour sauced wings over chips. Sprinkle with blue cheese crumbles. Serve with carrot & celery sticks, blue cheese and ranch dressing.

The post Buffalo Chicken Wings {and how to serve them} appeared first on Lemony Thyme.

Because everyone should have a Homemade Blue Cheese Dressing recipe tucked up their sleeve!

We’re going to use relatively few words and cut to the chase.

Homemade is better.

The flavor is better.

It’s better for you.

And you have a better chance of winning that second date.

It’s that good!

Dressing Ingredients

Let me give you a quick ingredient breakdown. The base of this dressing is a combination of mayonnaise, sour cream, buttermilk and white vinegar. Fresh snipped chives and/or parsley, garlic powder, salt and pepper are your flavor enhancers. Blue cheese is the star of the show.

Let me add that I’ve been on a Gorgonzola kick lately! Gorgonzola is a type of Italian blue cheese made with whole cow’s milk. Similarly, Roquefort is also in the blue bleu cheese family but rooted in France. I must admit that as a kid I often referred to Roquefort as “dirty sneaker cheese.”

Hey, taste buds evolve!

You Do You!

It’s totally up to you how thick you want to make your Homemade Blue Cheese Dressing. You can adjust the base ingredients accordingly and you can give it a whiz in the food processor.

When to use Homemade Blue Cheese Dressing

For an Iceberg Wedge Salad I like a nice thick dressing that hangs onto to the lettuce.

For our Blue Cheese Chips {with Crispy Bacon} I’m looking for more of a drizzle so I add a little more buttermilk.

Buffalo Chicken Wings and this dressing are a match made in heaven!

This savory dressing is super creamy with just the right amount of blue cheese zing. It’s delicious and worthy of a game-day debut!

I’d love for you to comment below. Don’t forget to follow us @LemonyThyme on Instagram and Facebook!

All my best,
xo Libby

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Homemade Blue Cheese Dressing

The base of this dressing is a combination of mayonnaise, sour cream, buttermilk and white vinegar. Fresh snipped chives, garlic powder, salt & pepper are your flavor enhancers. Blue cheese is the star of the show.

Course Dressing

Author Libby with Lemony Thyme

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 2 Tablespoons buttermilk
• 1 Tablespoon white vinegar
• 2 Tablespoons snipped fresh chives and/or fresh parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon fresh cracked black pepper
• 1/2 cup blue cheese crumbled

Instructions

• Combine all ingredients, except blue cheese. Whisk to combine. Fold in blue cheese. For a thinner consistency add 1-2 Tablespoons of buttermilk or pulse several times in a food processor. Store in refrigerator for up to one week.

The post Homemade Is Better Blue Cheese Dressing appeared first on Lemony Thyme.

Kate’s Roasted Buffalo Cauliflower Grilled Cheese.

Day #27 of National Grilled Cheese Month.  We’re building quite a collection of delectable and occasionally over the top sandwiches.  I enlisted the help of four of my favorite ladies (my nieces Maya, Kate & Jen and my kid Shelby).  Their mission was to come up with their own signature Grilled Cheese.  Here’s how Kate’s came to be.

Note to self:  make monkey bread.

Once we narrowed Kate’s Grilled Cheese down to a version of ‘Buffalo’ I began my recipe research.  I typed “buffalo grilled cheese sandwich” in my Google browser and it delivered 2,570,000 results (in .44 seconds).  You know what?  We’re better than that!

So then I Googled “buffalo cauliflower.”  Results 2,810,000 results (in .19 seconds).  Good to know how much we LOVE our buffalo cauliflower.

Guess what I did next?  I had to know.  Could this possibly be the first recipe I’ve ever made that someone else didn’t think of first??

Me:  “OMG! the internet has never seen a Roasted Buffalo Cauliflower Grilled Cheese.  Do you know what this means?”
Inner Voice:  “There might be a reason for it!”
Very true!!
Me:  “Wait until you taste it.  I may have just made the internet.”
Inner Voice:  “It’s a damn good way to sell cauliflower.  Maybe I should serve it with a side of wing sauce for dipping.”
Brilliant!!

Here’s how we put it together.

I think Kate will love the finished product.  Kate, my 1/2 marathon runner, about to move to London for 2 years, who is wondering how she’s going to tote her Dutch oven oversees.  I absolutely adore these ladies on every level.  I started this blog as a way to share family recipes.  I love sharing recipes with family just as much.  xoxo

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Roasted Buffalo Cauliflower Grilled Cheese

Cook Time 40 minutes minutes

Total Time 40 minutes minutes

Servings 4

Author Libby & Kate with Lemony Thyme

Ingredients

• 1 small head of cauliflower
• 1 Tbl. olive oil
• 1/2 cup Frank’s Hot Sauce
• 1/4 cup melted butter 4 Tbl.
• Blue cheese crumbles
• 8- ounces Havarti cheese sliced
• 8 slices grainy bread

Instructions

For oven roasted cauliflower…

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Coat shallow baking sheet with cooking spray.
• Place cauliflower core side down on a cutting board. Slice into 1-inch thick steaks, the ends will fall apart into florets. You should be able to get 4 1-inch thick steaks.
• Coat baking sheet with olive oil. Place steaks on prepared baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil.
• Bake 15 minutes on one side. Turn over and cook another 10 – 15 minutes until nicely browned.
• Meanwhile, combine melted butter and hot sauce in a saucepan. Brush cauliflower liberally and bake an additional 3 minutes. Turn over cauliflower and baste again with remaining hot sauce; bake 3 minutes.

To make grilled cheese…

• Butter bread slices and pan grill, topped with Havarti cheese, roasted buffalo cauliflower steaks, blue cheese crumbles, more Havarti. Turn until golden brown on both sides.
• Serve with a side of buffalo sauce.

The post Roasted Buffalo Cauliflower Grilled Cheese appeared first on Lemony Thyme.

Baked Sweet Potato with Buffalo Chicken.  Now here’s where you might say….Really? I’m here to tell you that the sweet of the potato is exactly what our Buffalo Chicken was hoping to cuddle up to.  These chickens, they try to be all aloof and such but they are real cuddle bugs.

Don’t pigeon hole your buffalo chicken into a manly-man hole.  Sophisticated palates will agree that sweet and heat are a force to be reckoned with.  Top your Perfectly Baked Sweet Potato with roasted chicken, a few dashes of your favorite buffalo sauce (like Franks Hot Sauce), then sprinkle on blue cheese crumbles.  Easy as can be with big flavor wow!!

The post Baked Sweet Potato {with Buffalo Chicken} appeared first on Lemony Thyme.

The Classic Cobb Salad.

The quintessential Eat Out of the Fridge/Pantry recipe just might be The Cobb Salad.  After all, as the story goes, that’s exactly how this world-famous salad came to be back in 1934.  Bob Cobb, owner of the legendary Hollywood Brown Derby restaurant, got a midnight hankering for something to eat.  Midnight snacks can be some of the best meals.  Anyway, he went pilfering through his restaurant’s industrial sized refrigerator pulling out a variety of leftover ingredients (hard-boiled eggs, lettuce, avocado, tomato, cooked chicken, blue cheese…) and proceeded to chop them into a massive salad.  He snagged a few slices of crispy bacon from a line-cook on his way out.  The Cobb Salad literally became an overnight sensation.

I’ll present it to you like I did earlier tonight.

How about a salad for dinner?  A great big Cobb Salad.  A bed of crisp iceberg & romaine lettuce topped with rows of juicy herb grilled chicken, perfectly cooked chopped hard-boiled eggs, diced creamy ripe avocado, thinly sliced scallions, blue cheese crumbles, diced garden tomatoes, and deliciously crispy crumbled bacon.

Or if you prefer we could have….  I was interrupted, “No! Nope. No need for more options, you had me at great big.”  Do I know how to sell a salad or what?! :)

The classic Cobb Salad Dressing is a Red Wine Vinaigrette.  However, when your recipe calls for cooked bacon, a Warm Bacon Dressing is just minutes away from FABULOUS.  You choose.

Remember this acronym when thinking of this fabulous salad:

EAT COBB:  Eggs, Avocado, Tomato, Chicken, Onion, Bacon, Blue Cheese.

And make no mistake about it.  This Cobb ‘Salad’ is a meal.  The perfect summertime supper.  Preparing ingredients ahead of time, will make this salad the best thing you’ve come home to in a long time.  Just wait to dice eggs and avocado until just before serving.  Enjoy.

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The Classic Cobb Salad

Course Entree, Salad

Cook Time 15 minutes minutes

Total Time 15 minutes minutes

Servings 4

Ingredients

• 6 strips bacon cooked until crispy
• 2 cups cooked chicken breast cubed
• 3 cups chopped iceberg lettuce
• 3 cups chopped romaine lettuce
• 2 med. tomatoes diced
• 3 hard-boiled eggs diced
• 1 avocado diced
• 4 scallions thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup blue cheese crumbles

Instructions

• Spread chopped lettuces on a large platter. Top with rows of remaining ingredients.
• Serve with favorite dressing.

The post The Classic Cobb Salad appeared first on Lemony Thyme.

Do you ever envision a recipe and think to yourself brilliant!, this is the most brilliant creation anyone has ever imagined. 

I will make it and they will name it after me.  But just to be safe, let’s do a quick google search just to be sure someone else hadn’t already thought of it. 

For a fleeting moment this Buffalo Wing Chicken Soup was my chance for fame.  Sadly, it’s not my time….let’s just say it’s been done a time or two.

We started our chicken breasts in the slow cooker so that when we got home that night, all we had to do was build this wonderful soup.  

This is a great Game Day recipe or week night dinner and has all the goodness of a big plate of chicken wings served with a side of blue cheese dressing. 

Buffalo Wing Chicken Soup.  Brilliant!

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Buffalo Wing Chicken Soup {with Orzo}

Course Soup

Servings 4

Author Libby with Lemony Thyme

Ingredients

• 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts cooked and shredded
• ½ cup uncooked orzo pasta
• 2 tsp. olive oil
• 1 onion chopped
• 2 cloves garlic minced
• 2 medium carrots peeled, and cut into half moons
• 1 Tbl. ranch dressing dry seasoning mix
• 2 Tbl. cilantro
• 32 ounces chicken stock
• ⅔ cup Frank’s Buffalo Wing Sauce
• 4 ounces cheddar cheese grated
• 4 ounces parmesan cheese grated
• ¼ cup scallions thinly sliced
• ¼ cup blue cheese crumbles
• cilantro leaves and scallions for garnish

Instructions

• Cook chicken breasts in slow cooker on low for 6-8 hours.
• Cook orzo according to package directions until about half way done. Drain and set aside.
• Heat olive oil in a large Dutch oven. Sauté onion and carrots until just tender 4-5 minutes. Then add in garlic and scallions, and cook for another 1-2 minutes. Sprinkle with ranch mix and stir to combine.
• Add chicken broth, buffalo sauce, cheddar, parmesan and shredded chicken. Stir to combine and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes, then add in the orzo and bring soup to a boil, stirring frequently until orzo is al dente.
• Serve with sliced scallions, additional cilantro and blue cheese crumbles.

The post Buffalo Wing Chicken Soup {with Orzo} appeared first on Lemony Thyme.

I was asked yesterday “where do you get your recipes?”  The short answer is “everywhere.”  Certainly the Internet offers unlimited options, however I love my cookbooks, read cooking magazines, talk to people about recipes, sample food offerings every chance I get, and often offer myself samples “Want a Bite Lib?”

However, with all that being said, the most common way I come up with a recipe is ingredient inspiration.  For example, this week at the office we had a catered lunch, which included a fruit and cheese tray.  At the end of the day a beautiful hunk of blue cheese remained.  I had no idea at the time what would become of this handsome fella but he was coming home with me!  Now pair that up with ‘Life’ putting you within 10 miles of a Whole Foods Market, which in our house = fresh fish.  Voila, Blackened Blue Cod.

We blackened the cod using an incredible chili pepper spice blend given to us by a friend.  Grown in his garden, dried over time, and ground up into genius.  We spooned garlic jalapeno wing sauce over the top and sprinkled with blue cheese crumbles.  Served with Cauliflower Cheese Grits (cauliflower is the new low-carb go-to in our home) and Sesame Brussels Sprout Slaw.  Also giving me an excuse to use my restored thrift store cast iron skillets.  This Blackened Blue Cod with Cauliflower Cheese Grits was a good ingredient inspiration dish.

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Blackened Blue Cod with Cauliflower Cheese Grits

Course Seafood

Cuisine Cajun

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes minutes

Total Time 30 minutes minutes

Servings 4

Author Libby with Lemony Thyme

Ingredients

• 1 1 lb. cod fillet
• 2 Tbl. canola oil
• 2-3 Tbl. hot sauce

For Blackening rub…

• 2 tsp. garlic powder
• 2 tsp. cayenne pepper
• 2 tsp. paprika
• 2 tsp. ground oregano
• 1 tsp. brown sugar
• 1 tsp. black pepper

Serve with…

• Cauliflower cheese grits
• Blue cheese crumbled

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
• Rinse and dry cod fillet.
• Combine blackening rub spices and sprinkle generously onto both sides of cod fillet, pressing in with hands.
• Heat cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat, when nice and hot add in canola oil, then carefully add in fish fillet. Sear 2-3 minutes per side.
• Brush 2-3 Tbl. hot sauce onto fillet, then transfer skillet to oven and finish cooking until fish flakes easily with fork, about 10 – 12 minutes.
• Serve on a bed of cauliflower cheese grits, sprinkled with blue cheese crumbles.

The post Blackened Blue Cod with Cauliflower Cheese Grits appeared first on Lemony Thyme.