Beard on Beard Recipe 3: Halloween on Halsted Seven Layer Dip

So, on the night my entire life changed, I made a bean dip for my friends just before we all went out for a Halloween parade on North Halsted in Chicago. What happened that night? You’ll have to wait for the book to find out. Was I dressed like Cabaret-era Liza Minnelli while I made it? OBVIOUSLY. Why? Guess you’ll just have to buy the book!! :)

Here’s a snippet.

“The layer dip is the kind you have at church fellowship meals or Super Bowl parties: bean dip beneath a layer of guacamole beneath sour cream beneath cheese. On top, I throw salted, diced tomatoes, chopped scallions, and sliced black olives. You serve it all in clear Pyrex so the layers are apparent. When it’s done, it’s pretty enough to eat, as my grandmother would have said.”

Me, Beard: A Memoir (Forthcoming Fall 2025, Eerdmans)

Seven Layer Dip

Ingredients:

2 cans Fritos Bean Dip (I prefer to use bean dip rather than refried beans—they already have a zip of vinegar and seasoning and are softer when cold and set than refried beans)

8 oz guacamole

8 oz crema (or sour cream)

6 oz Pico de Gallo (I used this instead of fresh tomatoes because I live in Minnesota, and it’s April)

1/2 cup shredded cheese

1/4 cup sliced black olives (I prefer to buy them pitted but whole and then slice them)

1. Spread bean dip in the bottom of a clear Pyrex container (this was 9 x 9). Most recipes for this dish will tell you to mix half an envelope of taco seasoning in a can of refried beans. I prefer bean dip. Also, when I was making this, my daughter (who had never had bean dip before) ate nearly a full container, so this was thinner than it would otherwise been. She loved it.

2. So….this is where things got weird. I should have put the guacamole next (have I mentioned I’m terrible at details, and I’ve got severe ADHD?), but alas, I did not. Also: I have been using La Chona crema in place of sour cream ever since the world’s greatest supermercado opened up a few blocks from my house a few years ago. You can put crema in hot food, and it doesn’t break. It tastes nutty and delicious in a way other sour creams don’t. BUT it’s thinner than most sour creams. I thought whipping it might firm it up a bit (that’s what she said), but the crema seemed to sense my desperation, and it defied me by becoming even thinner. Anyway, it still tasted amazing, but learn from my mistakes. OOH. Also, most recipes for this call for you to add the rest of that taco seasoning to the sour cream. I cannot stress this enough: I HATE that. Uncooked taco seasoning tastes like chemicals to me. I don’t like it. So…I don’t do that, but you do what your mouth wants (and I’ll just like you less when you tell me about it). :)

3. Place little dollops of guacamole on top of what essentially is crema soup. Turn that into a faintly green guacamole crema soup as you spread it.

4. Do this wrong YET again by putting pico on top of the delicious creamy accidental soup instead of cheese. :)

5. Put shredded cheese on top of pico. Chastise yourself verbally for doing this in the wrong order.

6. Put black olives only in the corner you intend to eat that afternoon because your spouse hates olives, and you don’t hate your spouse.

Serve with whatever tortilla chips you like. Fritos can hold up to the heft of the dip, but my family likes thinner yellow corn chips. I think we ate this with chips we also got at the Supermercado.