Everybody knows the classic taste of Kiwi Onion Dip – but what are the other 10 Maggi soup flavours like when mixed with Nestlé reduced cream? We made them all to find out.

One day in the early 1960s, a minor miracle occurred at the Nestlé test kitchen in Auckland. Tasked with finding a way to capitalise on the emerging trend for dips, home economist Rosemary Dempsey mixed 1x tin of Nestlé reduced cream with the contents of 1x packet of Maggi onion soup mix and created what would become one of New Zealand’s most enduring culinary innovations: Kiwi Onion Dip.

For 60 years New Zealanders have been mixing packets of Maggi onion soup mix into bowls full of Nestlé reduced cream, sometimes adding a squeeze of lemon juice or splash of vinegar (Dempsey says this step is unnecessary) and chilling them in the fridge for a couple of hours before serving it as an accompaniment for chips, carrots or celery sticks. 

It’s a simple, crowd-pleasing recipe from which we’ve never had any reason to stray. But today there are 10 other Maggi soup flavours which, in theory, could be made into dips by following the exact same formula. What if one of them is even better than Kiwi Onion Dip?

To find out, this week I assembled every* Maggi packet soup and mixed approximately half the contents of each with approximately half a tin of Nestlé reduced cream. After allowing them to chill for two-and-a-half hours, I laid them out along with a bowl of ready salted Bluebird Originals chips (later replaced by Proper Crisps in what can only be described as a chip coup) and offered them to a self-selected panel of nine dip-curious staff from The Spinoff office, in exchange for their thoughts, feelings and a score out of 10 for each dip.

These are the results, ranked from worst to best.

Unranked: THICK VEGETABLE

* Unfortunately we were unable to source a packet of the elusive thick vegetable soup mix for this taste test. Most agreed that this was probably for the best and would have been “really bad”, though some rued the missed connection, saying “I bet it would be really good”. If you can get your hands on a packet, try it out for yourself and let us know.

10. RICH TOMATO

“Actually not bad,” said a surprised Mad Chapman, before reaching for another scoop of this rustic pink dip and immediately changing her mind. “Oh no,” Toby Manhire retched, throwing the rest of his tainted chip in the rubbish bin. Rich tomato is one of six Maggi soup flavours to carry the designation “Great for Dips!” on the packet, but our panel strongly disagreed. The only outlier was Mark Kelliher – “Does anyone else quite like this?” he wondered aloud. The response was unanimous: “No.” 2.3/10

9. CREAMY MUSHROOM 

“This is the worst one,” Chapman declared authoritatively, and most of the panel agreed. “Disgusting,” groaned Kelliher. “Spit-it-out awful,” spat Bianca Cross. Manhire likened the taste to “offal that’s been left out in the sun” and/or “bits of an animal that shouldn’t be eaten”. In a cruel irony, creamy mushroom is the closest in colour and texture to a classic onion dip, which means it could easily be deployed as a “prank dip” by the truly darksided among us. 2.4

8. PUMPKIN & ROASTED GARLIC

With its mango sorbet complexion, the pumpkin and roasted garlic dip at least looked appetising – “this could go on a grazing platter if you dressed it up a bit,” opined Jane Yee. The hard-to-please Manhire declared this dip “surprisingly not terrible” and Matthew McAuley felt the mildly sweet flavour profile “balances out a salty chip”, but despite the encouraging comments, the consistently low scores told a different story. Maybe not so “Great for Dips” after all. 4.2

7. CREAMY SEAFOOD 

Reactions to creamy seafood dip ranged from unrestrained disgust to pure ecstasy. “That’s gross,” baulked Cross, who scored it 1; “It’s chowder, it’s mussels, I love it,” raved Jin Fellet, who gave it an 8. Those somewhere in the middle saw potential in the divisive dip – Yee thought it didn’t work with chips but would be “perfect” on a cracker with a squeeze of lemon, while Amber Easby singled out the festive “red and green bits” as worthy of praise. 4.5

6. HEARTY OXTAIL 

“I love oxtail soup,” salivated Sophie Dowson, making a beeline for the visually unappealing brown dip. “But…” she ominously trailed off mid-mouthful. “I liked it a lot more till I found out it was oxtail,” harrumphed Manhire, who likened the salty flavour profile to sucking on an Oxo cube. Similarly, McAuley detected notes of overcooked gravy, while others murmured that it had a “patéish” quality. Some did score this as high as 8/10, but the consensus seemed to be that it’s simply too hardcore for general consumption. 4.8

5. CRÈME OF CHICKEN 

The green-speckled chicken dip was slammed for its “weird consistency”, which in its defence may have just been a consequence of careless mixing. While the panel did show a surprising taste for chicken dip (see below), the clear consensus was that crème of chicken wasn’t the one. Yee thought it “works better as a soup than a dip”, which could probably be said of every flavour here if we’re honest. 5.1

4. BACON & ONION 

Sometimes silence speaks volumes and that was the case when it came to bacon and onion dip. “Mmm, I like this”, Fellet mumbled mid-munch, while Anna Rawhiti-Connell simply uttered “yum”. Most of the panel let their scores do the talking – no one gave this smoky, meaty twist on onion dip less than a five. Their combined scores averaged out to 6.66, which we’ve reluctantly rounded up to one decimal place in the name of consistency. 6.7

3. CHICKEN NOODLE 

Chicken provided the biggest shock of this tasting, with our panel unexpectedly going clucking mad for chicken noodle dip. “I love”, exclaimed Dowson. “It makes a ready salted taste like a chicken chip”, enthused Chapman. “That’s good”, nodded Yee. McAuley declared this to be “the best” flavour, anointing it his “star dip” as he went back for a second helping. “It’s salty, but good salty,” he explained. 7.4

2. FRENCH ONION 

As French vanilla is to vanilla ice cream, French onion emerged as a viable connoisseur’s choice alternative to onion dip. The panel agreed the flavour of this darker-hued onion dip was “more intense” than its counterpart, which Dowson felt made it “not as moreish”. McAuley said this dip tasted “classy”, and made traditional onion dip seem “unsophisticated by comparison”. 8.0

1. ONION 

Nobody said anything about the classic onion dip, because what is there really to say? Their scores tell the story: despite our palates being piqued by an array of alternatives, onion remained the clear and undisputed queen of dips. Thank you, Rosemary Dempsey. 8.9