Pimento Cheese for Grown-Ups

One of my favorite things in the world is pimento cheese.  Trouble is, the pre-made stuff you buy at the grocery store can be too sickly sweet.  I searched for years for a decent recipe, trying to find the perfect balance between the savory cheese and the sweet peppers.

 

Finally, I bought Craig Claiborne’s book Southern Cooking.  The late Craig Claiborne, the long-time food editor for the New York Times, was a restaurant critic and a Mississippi native.    There are dozens of traditional Southern recipes in this book, and I recommend it for anyone looking to learn more about our regional cuisine.

 

Kicked Up Pimento Cheese

While I credit Craig for his pimento cheese recipe, I really used it as a jumping off place to develop a recipe specifically suited to my taste.  I replaced the canned pimentos with fire roasted fresh peppers, the full fat mayo with light mayonnaise, adjusted the amount of green onions and added a cayenne kick.  I consider it Pimento Cheese for grownups.

Lisa’s Kicked Up Pimento Cheese

1/2 pound mild Cheddar

1/2 pound sharp Cheddar
3 or 4 small sweet pimentos or 1 large red bell pepper
1/2 cup chopped green onions
1/2 cup light mayonnaise (In my house, that means Duke’s)
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon minced garlic
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
Generous dash of Frank’s Red Hot
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Grate the cheeses, or buy the already shredded kind and combine in a large bowl.

Whole Foods has great organic pre-shredded cheese.  It's a convenience food you can feel good about.

Next, roast the peppers.  I have a gas stove, so I just put them directly on the burner, turning them as they blacken and blister.  Alternately, you can toss them with a little olive oil and broil them, turning after they blacken on one side and repeat on the other side.  After roasting them, place them in a Ziploc bag and seal it.  Let the peppers rest for about 15 minutes.

Fire-roasting the peppers

At this point, the skin should rub off of the peppers easily.  After removing the skin, seed, stem and dice the peppers.  Add to the cheese with the green onions and toss.

Roasted peppers taking a rest.

Leave a bit of the blackened skin on the peppers for extra smoky flavor. 

Combine the mayonnaise, lemon juice, garlic, Worcestershire, Frank’s, black and cayenne peppers. Pour into the cheese/pepper mixture and stir well to combine. 

This pimento cheese is best served after it is allowed one hour or two in the fridge for the flavors to marry.  It has creamy texture from the cheese, savory notes from the onions and garlic, the slightly smoky, sweet flavor from the fire-roasted pimento, followed up by a nice slight afterburn from the cayenne. Just yum.

You can serve this with crackers or celery for dipping.  We put it on burgers with Benton’s Bacon for a real treat.   It also makes an excellent picnic food.  Or just go old school and eat it on white bread and wash it down with a big glass of sweet tea.