Pimento Cheese (A Southern-Style dip and sandwich spread)

Pimento cheese is such a delicious Southern dish, used commonly as a dip for crackers and crudité or spread between two slices of bread for an easy sandwich! Cheddar cheese is mixed with – you guessed it – pimentos (which are a type of roasted red pepper that comes in a jar). This recipe uses whipped cream cheese. This will make it super spreadable, even straight from the fridge. We’ll also add pickled jalapeños for a tangy zing. You’ll love this easy 5-minute recipe!

First off, if you’ve never had pimento cheese, welcome to your new favorite thing to eat! This is a delicious and versatile recipe commonly enjoyed in the South in the United States. A blend of grated cheddar cheese, pimentos (you know, the little chopped red peppers that you sometimes find in the hole of a green olive?), cream cheese, mayo, and spices.

Sometimes, a jalapeño is added for a little extra crunch and spice. For this version, I opted to use pickled jalapeños instead of a fresh one, which added a nice sweet and tangy flavor (I used my favorite Hot & Sweet Jalapeños from Trader Joe’s). You can use whatever kind or brand you want, which is a great way to control the end flavor result. Or, you can just leave them out!

I did something else a bit unconventional here: I used whipped cream cheese instead of a block. With a block of cream cheese, you need to wait for it to soften before mixing up the pimento cheese. And it also hardens significantly when it cools down in the fridge, making the pimento cheese difficult to spread or dip into. Nobody likes an unwieldy pimento cheese!

Using whipped cream cheese ensures you can mix up a batch of pimento cheese at a moment’s notice. It also ensures that it remains soft, spreadable, and dip-able even right out of the fridge.

You can use pimento cheese as a dip for crackers, but for so many other things too. Sandwiches (grilled or cold), burgers, omelettes, and even mac and cheese! More on that below. Let’s make some pimento cheese!

Ingredients in Pimento Cheese (and Substitutions)

• Pimentos – you can find jarred chopped pimento peppers near the olives in your grocery store. Use jarred roasted red bell peppers, diced, as a substitute in a pinch.
• Cheddar Cheese – I like to buy a block and grate it myself. But you can buy pre-grated for a shortcut if you like. I prefer a mild cheddar.
• Whipped cream cheese – you can use a block if you like, but you’ll need to allow it to soften (both before mixing up the pimento cheese and after it cools in the fridge).
• Mayonnaise – I used Duke’s Mayonnaise for this, which is “THE” mayo in the South and has a lot of flavor (and my grocery store in Rhode Island had it in stock). But you can use what you have! Hellman’s would be my second choice here.
• Pickled Jalapeños – any kind you want, keeping in mind how sweet or spicy they are will affect the overall taste of the recipe. I love Trader Joe’s Hot & Sweet. You can also use a fresh diced jalapeño, or simply omit altogether.
• Spices: garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, cayenne pepper, salt, and pepper. You can omit the cayenne, or adjust the amount, depending on your spice level preference.
• Chives or parsley or something green to garnish and make it look pretty – this is optional.

How to make Pimento Cheese

Making pimento cheese is no harder than mixing all of the ingredients in a bowl! Grated cheddar cheese, pimentos, whipped cream cheese, mayo, chopped pickled jalapeños, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, cayenne pepper, salt, and pepper all go into a large mixing bowl and get stirred together. That’s it!

What are pimentos, anyway?

Aside from “the little red things you find in the hole of a green olive,” you mean? Gotcha. Pimentos are just a type of small type of red pepper, also called a cherry pepper. It’s similar to a red bell pepper, but sweeter. Kind of like the difference between a large red tomato and a super sweet cherry tomato.

Pimentos come diced and neatly jarred in exactly 4 oz. portions, which is what you need for this recipe! You’ll find them with the olives in your grocery store. You can also find them in the Goya section, though those may come in strips that you’ll need chop into smaller pieces for this recipe.

And because they are similar to red bell peppers, you can also use diced jarred red bell peppers as a substitute in a pinch.

How to use Pimento Cheese

Pimento cheese makes a great dip with crackers or crudité. But it has so many other possibilities! Here are a few ideas for using Pimento cheese other than as a dip:

• Make Pimento Cheese Sandwiches – these are delicious, and are nothing more than the pimento cheese spread on bread to make a sandwich. It’s usually served on standard white sandwich bread, as in the photo below.
• Make it a grilled cheese! But if you want to elevate your pimento cheese sandwich, I suggest making a grilled cheese out of it! You can use nicer bread (such as this homemade artisan no knead bread) and grill it as you would any grilled cheese, in a skillet or a panini press.
• Add it to a burger or chicken sandwich – use it in place of sliced cheese on a cheeseburger. Or, use as a spread on a grilled or fried chicken sandwich.
• Use it in an omelette – instead of sprinkling shredded cheese in an omelette, try adding a few spoonfuls of pimento cheese instead.
• Add it to a breakfast sandwich – an egg, some pimento cheese, bacon, and sliced avocado on an english muffin, anyone? Yum!
• Make mac and cheese with it! – just add it to the cheese sauce as a replacement for (or as an addition to) plain shredded cheese!

Do you have any other great ideas for using pimento cheese? Add them in the comments below – we’d love to hear about them!

Whipped cream cheese vs. block cream cheese

The reason why whipped cream cheese is used is because it makes the pimento cheese soft and spreadable, even directly out of the fridge. You can use a block of cream cheese if you want (which is what most other pimento cheese recipes call for). Here’s what to do!

Make sure the block of cream cheese is at room temperature and softened up before mixing up the pimento cheese. Then follow the recipe as normal. When you refrigerate the pimento cheese, it will harden a bit. Leave it out at room temperature for a while to soften a bit before serving as a dip or if you need it to spread easily.

Other Southern recipe favorites

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