Pimento Cheese - A Summertime Staple in the South

If you grew up in the south there is a good chance that your summer vacation lunch menu consisted of a lot of pimento cheese sandwiches. When there is more than one kid at home for three meals a day, moms tend to find recipes that will stretch a few meals for the week. You can make a LOT of pimento cheese with a few relatively inexpensive ingredients. I have come across some older versions that were basically grated cheddar, mayo, pimentos, and some salt and pepper. Trust me, if you are making this for your kids, this is a perfect lunch staple that they can grab and get back on the go.

I know that ten-year-old me would have been totally digging the old school recipe, but old southern woman in me wants to give it more flavors, texture, and creaminess. As with so many of my recipes, this is going to mostly come from ingredients that I already keep on hand. Feel free to play around with what sounds tasty to you.

Ingredients:

• 4 cups grated extra sharp cheddar

• 1 cup of mayo (I like to use the Kraft olive oil mayo with cracked peppercorn)

• 8 oz. of cream cheese, softened

• 4 oz jar of pimentos, drained

• ½ lb. bacon, thick cut, cooked and crumbled

• 2 medium jalapenos, seeded and diced

• 1 medium red onion, diced

All you do now is put the ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer and mix until everything is combined. I can usually get almost all this recipe in a quart sized air-tight container. It will keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks, but at my house it usually only lasts a few days.

This isn’t your average pimento cheese. The cream cheese makes a melty, creamy piece of heaven when you heat it up. I have put it on burgers and brats, and I have even heated it up and used it as a dip. My favorite quick fix meal, though, was when I had some left-over crawfish. I heated the pimento cheese until it was melty, stirred in the crawfish, and poured it over baked potatoes. (see photo)

Please feel free to play with this recipe and make it your own. I would love to know what you added or changed, so leave me a message in the comments.