PARTNER POST: Get ready to feed a holiday crowd with appetizer recipes paired perfectly with food-friendly Cavit wines.
These persimmon bacon bites with rosemary goat cheese are the perfect winter appetizer and only require four ingredients.
If you’re looking for a crave-worthy appetizer to keep your family happy while you finish cooking Christmas dinner or to pass around at a New Year’s Eve party, I have totally got you covered. These persimmon bacon bites are the best app I’ve eaten in recent memory, and are super cute to boot. They pair perfectly with a chilled glass of Cavit’s crisp Pinot Grigio, and the combination is pretty much guaranteed to put even the grinchiest of grinches in the holiday spirit. When you’re snacking on fruit with bacon and herbed goat cheese and sipping on tasty Italian wine, there’s just no way not to feel festive. 
I just discovered persimmons this year and they’ve quickly become my new favorite fruit. They taste kind of like a delicious mashup between a mango and a papaya, and I find them incredibly addictive. I used fuyu persimmons here and haven’t had a chance to try other varieties yet, so I recommend finding fuyus for this recipe. They’re the ones that are kind of squat like little pumpkins and are not pointed at the bottom.
When I’m eating a persimmon plain, I like to let it get nice and soft so the insides are custardy and smooth. However, when you’re making persimmon bacon bites, you want to choose persimmons that are still a bit firm so the slices will hold together well. Once roasted, they’ll have that smooth texture of a perfectly ripe raw persimmon with an even deeper sweet flavor. The hint of rosemary in the goat cheese makes these bites taste fresh and seasonal, and the bacon ties everything together both literally and figuratively.
An ice cold glass of Cavit’s fruity Pinot Grigio is ideal for washing down all this deliciousness. Cavit uses 100% Pinot Grigio grapes grown in Italy to craft this wine, which undergoes cold fermentation in thermo-conditioned tanks. That’s what makes this Pinot Grigio taste so fresh. I find wine production fascinatingly mysterious, and love imagining what things like cold fermentation might actually look like. These are the things I muse about while sipping a glass of Cavit wine and nibbling on persimmon bacon bites…
For another easy holiday appetizer, try these lamb bites. Recipe here.
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- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 0 about 20 appetizers 1x
Ingredients
- 3 slightly underripe fuyu persimmons
- 10–12 slices of bacon (sliced in half crosswise)
- 6 ounces goat cheese
- 1½ teaspoons minced fresh rosemary
Instructions
- Slice the persimmons into rounds a little less than ¼ inch thick, then cut the rounds in half to form semicircles. Count the pieces to determine how much bacon you’ll need–each full slice of bacon is enough for two persimmon semicircles.
- Preheat the oven to 375°F and line a baking sheet with foil for easy cleanup. Arrange the halved bacon slices on the sheet and bake for about 10 minutes, until starting to brown but still very bendy. Transfer the bacon to a plate lined with paper towels to drain and cool. Increase the oven temperature to 400°F.
- Mix the goat cheese and rosemary in a small bowl. Top each persimmon slice with a teaspoonful of herbed goat cheese rolled into a ball. Wrap a piece of bacon around each one and secure it with a toothpick.
- Place the persimmon bacon bites on a clean baking sheet lined with foil or parchment and roast for 15-20 minutes, or until the bacon is cooked through. Cool for at least 5 minutes and serve warm with chilled white wine.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Category: Appetizer
