Pimento-Green Olive Cheese Spread

Pimento cheese is one Southern recipe that the rest of the country needs to adopt.

Why?

Because it’s a cheese and dip in one! It’s full of flavor, and can be enjoyed in SO many ways (see below for ideas).

If you haven’t tried pimento cheese before, now is your chance.

This recipe calls for green olives stuffed with pimentos (the cheap green olives found in every grocery store). If you want the traditional pimento cheese, use straight pimentos instead of green olives stuffed with pimentos.

Pimento Cheese Serving Suggestions

How should this pimento-green olive cheese spread be eaten? Here are my favorite ways:

• Served as a dip, along with homemade pita chips or homemade bagel chips, and fresh veggie slices
• Spread on top of celery slices
• Used as a sandwich spread (make the best BLT sandwich ever!)
• Used as a base for homemade mac & cheese
• Used as a burger topping
• Used as a filling for jalapeno poppers (Slice jalapenos in half and remove seeds. Fill each half with pimento cheese. Broil for 2 to 3 minutes.)
• Used on tuna melts (spread pimento cheese directly on bread, or place on top of tuna before baking)

Recipe Tip: Cheese

Use a block of cheese instead of buying a bag of shredded cheese. Here’s why:

• The cheese should be finely shredded (using the fine blades on any cheese grater). Most packaged shredded cheese is more coarsely shredded.
• Packaged shredded cheese usually has extra ingredients to prevent caking (like cellulose powder, potato starch, and calcium sulfate).  These extra ingredients are not needed for this recipe.

Also, use mild cheddar cheese for this recipe. I find sharp cheddar cheese flavor to be too strong for such a concentrated dip.