Dressing Up Pimento Cheese

In some parts of the country, pride is taken in homemade pimento cheese; self-respecting Southerners would never buy the commercial kind to fill a sandwich or to top a canapé. And why would they? At its simplest, pimento cheese calls for shredded sharp Cheddar, minced jarred pimentos and mayonnaise. Variations include cream cheese, onion, pickles and hot sauce.


Brooke Parkhurst, far left, a native of Pensacola, Fla., now living in New York, likes hers sharp and spicy, suitable to nibble with a martini at 5 p.m. or to use as an omelet filling for Sunday brunch. Tweaking her grandmother’s recipe, she roasts red peppers in olive oil, uses sharp Irish Cheddar, Ben’s cream cheese, mayonnaise and, for the kick, sriracha hot sauce. Her Belle’s Southern Comforts pimento cheese is $6.99 for seven ounces at Murray’s Cheese stores.

[via NY Times]