Pimento Cheese

By Food & Wine
Updated April 24, 2017
FREDRIKA STJÄRNE
The Southern staple dish pimento cheese makes for an excellent addition to several recipes. Here, our best dishes featuring pimento cheese, from pimento quesadillas to squash blossoms with pimento ricotta.
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Pimento Cheese Grits

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In this clever dish from Bobby Flay, he folds the classic ingredients of pimento cheese (a Southern starter made with cheddar cheese, cream cheese and roasted peppers) into warm, creamy grits, switching up smoky Spanish piquillos for the jarred pimientos.

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Grilled Ham-and-Pimento-Cheese Sandwiches with Fonduta and Fried Eggs

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Andy Ticer and Michael Hudman created this wow sandwich that just keeps on going with a filling of crispy, cheesy grilled ham-and-pimento-cheese. The amazing sandwich is topped with creamy three-cheese sauce and a fried egg.

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Pimento Cheese with Salt-and-Pepper Butter Crackers

© CON POULOS
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TV chef Carla Hall makes her own crunchy crackers to serve with her cheese spread, a riff on a Southern classic.

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Katie's Pimento Goat Cheese

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"My grandpa always used to make pimento cheese for me with sharp cheddar, or even Velveeta," says Katie Lee about the sweet pepper-studded spread, a Southern classic that's also a great dip. "I wanted to make it more grown-up." Katie's goat-cheese version is light and silky.

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Pimento Cheese & Bacon Crostini

BURCU AVSAR
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Down Home with the Neelys has inventive recipes like these irresistible crostini.

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Pimento Cheese

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Pimientos are large, sweet, heart-shaped peppers that are typically used for canning. Pimento cheese—the simple combination of grated cheddar cheese with mayonnaise and pimientos—is a Southern staple often served on crackers or vegetables. The key to making the best pimento cheese is top-quality sharp cheddar. But Angie Mosier, owner of Blue-Eyed Daisy Bakeshop in Palmetto, Georgia, says her personal secret is using sweet onions like Vidalia or Walla Walla.

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Pimento Cheese Quesadillas

MOLLY YEH
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The pimento cheese spread can be made in advance and stored in the refrigerator. Be sure to make some extra in case midnight snack cravings leave you with no other choice than to sneak a taste of this amazing spread.

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Pimento Cheese Fries

LUCAS ALLEN
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To take his french fries over the top, chef Jonathon Sawyer broils them with a tequila-spiked pimento cheese topping. It's wonderfully decadent melted into the fries and also excellent as a dip.

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Pimento-Cheese-and-Tomato Pie

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This luscious, quiche-like pie is a mash-up of two Southern favorites--tangy pimento cheese and silky tomato pie. The riper and more flavorful your tomato is, the better the pie will be. Crumble bacon over the top to really push it over the edge!

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Pimento Cheese Muffins

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Chef Lincoln Carson likes to bake a nugget of pimento cheese. The version here mixes the pimento cheese into the batter, so you get cheesy, peppery flavors in every bite.

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Squash Blossoms with Pimento Ricotta

FREDRIKA STJÄRNE
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Leigh Magar loves the fresh taste of edible flowers. For her, Matt Lee and Ted Lee created a new version of a Tuscan classic, fried squash blossoms stuffed with ricotta. They mix the ricotta with pimentos--an homage to pimento cheese, a Southern favorite--and serve the blossoms raw.

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