Five Delicious Takes on Pimento Cheese

Pimento cheese, or “Carolina Caviar,” as it was sometimes referred to where I grew up, is kind of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it’s the perfect snacking cheese — spreadable, mildly spicy, and salty. On the other hand, one can never just dip their hand in a single bite of pimento cheese and stop. I know this from firsthand experience. I may have also fallen asleep with streaks of dried pimento cheese smeared across my face in a cheddar-induced haze. This is why I don’t make it often. This is also why I’ve stopped setting it out on my coffee table, right in front of my napping sofa.

Today’s recipe is my basic, go-to recipe, adapted from the Lee Brothers Southern Cookbook, and I’ve listed some of my favorite add-ins to make your pimento cheese uniquely yours.

For this recipe, it’s important to char the bell peppers so that the skin is extra-black on all sides. It means the bell pepper is getting cooked thoroughly, so that, once peeled, the flesh is sleek and soft the touch, like the surface of an otter (I don’t know why it reminds me of that, it just does). Secondly, the char also imparts just a hint of smokiness, which really adds depth to the pimento cheese spread. Without the bell pepper, all you have is a variant of a sad little cheese dip. No one likes sad cheese.

This recipe produces my absolute favorite pimento cheese. The sweet bell peppers mitigate the saltiness of the cheddar well, and the cream cheese/mayo combination adds just the right amount of creaminess. If you’re looking to really wow your guests, there are a few ways you can punch up your pimento cheese after you’ve already made your basic batch of pimento cheese according the recipe I’ve posted below.

First and foremost, if you don’t have kids coming over, mix in a shot of bourbon. The booze elevates the pimento cheese so that it’s similar to a port cheddar with a decidedly Southern kick. I also almost always add two tablespoons of minced fresh chives for a lighter onion twist to the cheese. Other times, I’ll blacken a jalapeño under the broiler at the same time I’m charring the bell pepper and chop up the two together to mix into the cheese base so that there’s a grassier spice mixed in with the sweetness of the bell pepper. A tablespoon of sriracha hot sauce has also been a big hit among our guests in the past, and sometimes I’ll make extra bacon to chop up and put into my pimento cheese (although I’ll note that adding bacon means you need to eliminate seasoning the pimento cheese with any sort of salt whatsoever, or you’ll have a salt explosion in your mouth when you try to eat it).