- Katie Lee Biegel says her grandpa’s five-ingredient pimento cheese recipe is a favorite holiday appetizer.
- She makes the dip with sharp Cheddar, mayo, pimentos, relish and onion powder.
- Biegel serves it with Ritz crackers, though crudités or another favorite cracker would work as well.
Whether you’re assembling a charcuterie board or looking for the perfect dip to take along to a dinner party, there’s really nothing quite like creamy, tangy pimento cheese dip. The iconic Southern food staple, which contains pimento peppers and shredded cheese, is great spread onto crackers, slathered atop burgers or stuffed into celery stalks. It’s a simple but mighty spread that’s versatile and sure to wow everyone who takes a bite—especially if you’re lucky enough to discover a really good recipe for it.
Thankfully, cookbook author and Food Network star Katie Lee Biegel has an extra-special pimento cheese recipe, one that came from her grandfather when she was growing up in West Virginia and remains a family favorite to this day. In a reel shared to her Instagram account, Biegel shows followers exactly how to make the spread she calls her favorite party hors d’oeuvre.
“This is my grandpa’s recipe,” Biegel says in the video clip. “It’s so simple, tried-and-true, delicious.”
The best part about Biegel’s delicious-sounding pimento cheese? It’s a five-ingredient spread that’s easy to whip up using a food processor. And while most of us are a fan of the convenience of a food processor, in the caption on her reel, Biegel shares that her grandfather used an “old fashioned, hand-cranked meat grinder” to get the perfect, creamy spread he desired. That’s a level of dedication to the perfect pimento cheese that we can get behind.
“I’ve got grated sharp cheddar cheese,” Biegel says as she walks through the recipe. “You need to grate this from the block. Don’t buy the bag of pre-shredded cheese. That stuff has anti-caking agents and you just need it fresh; you need that moisture that’s in there.”
Next on your ingredients list are a few more classic pimento cheese elements, and Biegel rattles them off with ease.
“Mayonnaise, pimentos from the jar, sweet pickle relish and some onion powder,” she continues. “Now, you don’t have to use a food processor. You can stir this by hand and have more texture, but I like it to be really creamy.”
Once it’s reached the perfect level of creaminess, Biegel recommends serving the pimento cheese with some Ritz crackers, adding that while she doesn’t get paid by the brand to say so, they’re truly her favorite thing to pair with her grandpa’s creamy pimento cheese recipe. “It needs to be a Ritz cracker,” she insists.
We like our dips on the creamy side, too, like our High-Protein Spinach Dip and Buffalo Chicken Dip. What’s more, you could sub pimento cheese into both of these dip recipes to give them some extra flair. Another great use for pimento cheese? Finding a macaroni and cheese recipe that uses creamy ingredients like sour cream or cream cheese and trying it with pimento cheese instead.
However you choose to eat Biegel’s pimento cheese, it’s a dish she says “every holiday party needs,” and who are we to argue with that?
“This looks perfect,” Biegel says after finishing the dip and going in for a taste. “Simple pimento cheese spread: done. Be still my heart. It’s so good.” We can’t wait to taste it for ourselves.
