Sharp & Spicy Pimento Cheese (& Grandmama!)
If you’re on Pinterest or Facebook, I’d sure love it if you could use one of those buttons above. Thanks so much!
Pimento Cheese (pronounced pub-men-uh) is a staple in the Southeastern United States – and also in the Philippines. Clearly, this speaks to the wonderful taste of those folks (love y’all!). It’s one of those things we had often growing up and sometimes you just get a hankering that nothing else will satisfy except a good old pimento cheese sandwich.
There are a couple of ways to make pimento cheese but the main two involve sharp cheddar (like this recipe) and Velveeta (click here for the velveeta version). Both are delicious in my book. However, at a photo shoot for Taste of the South last weekend, we had wheat crackers and a big old tub of spicy pimento cheese. It was so heavenly that I decided to come home and whip some up to show folks how to make it, just in case you didn’t know. Because not having a little spicy pimento cheese from time to time would be a crying shame. As if I needed another excuse, I got to go visit my Grandmama this past weekend and she loves pimento cheese so it was the perfect little treat to take to her.
A little about Grandmama
My Grandmother is the cute smiling lady in that photo above. She is my mother’s mother and she and I have a lot of things in common. Chief among those commanlities being that she is the only person I know that I can call at 4:00 AM to have a chat and cup of coffee with over the phone. She’ll answer the phone “Hellloooo! I’m just a sitting here having me a little coffee.” I’m pretty sure I’m the only person who calls her at this hour. We enjoy our little conversations when we get to have them – and every now and then I send her a tin of coffee as a thank you.
There is something very comforting knowing someone else who gets up as early as I do. No matter how early I get up, I know my Grandmama has likely beat me to the punch.
Grandmama is a joy to talk to because she is the kind of person who always looks on the bright side. I’ve never once seen her get frazzled. I think that living through the depression and growing up as poor as she did acts as a common sense buffer to life. While the rest of the world is running around shouting that the sky is falling, Grandmama remains even keeled, dependable, and always encouraging.
My goal is to be like her
I want to be like her when I’m gray and I’m sure a lot of others feel the same way. But you know what? You don’t just magically turn sweet, kind, and wise when the clock flips over to 65 (Remember, I had 13 living grandparents when I was born, so I got to see contrast here!).
We have to start working towards it now. It’s important to practice looking for joy, especially when other folks are looking for something to complain about. You have to learn to value loving people over judging them, and be more concerned with what is right than being right. These are just the beginning stepping stones but when you seek out things like this in life, wisdom follows. Many of my grandparents walked this path to end up the kind and wise people they were in their older years. I do my best to follow in their steps. I want to be wrinkled and gray, with an easy smile and twinkling eyes and arms strong as an ox surrounded by folks who want hugs from them. That’s a destination worth reaching, so for me, it’s a path worth taking.
Come to think of it, my grandparents who ended up sweet, kind, wise, and loving, all ate pimento cheese on a regular basis. Now I’m not saying this had anything to do with it but there’s no sense in taking any chances – so let’s get mixin’!
You’ll need: Mayo, sharp cheddar, cayenne pepper, pimentos, and some hot sauce.
Note: I always like to point out for the folks who don’t love mayo that I don’t either, so don’t fret over it in this recipe. You really won’t taste it because the cheddar cheese, sauces, and pimentos really overshadow it. We mainly have it in there to hold it all together.
I also like to point out to the folks who are horrified at the thought of a Southerner not liking mayo that I’m a ninth generation Alabamian. My people having lived here long before it even became a state, and in addition to not liking mayo, I also don’t like seafood. I’ll just share in your horror and admit that I have no idea why they haven’t kicked me out of the South over such atrocities but I realize I’m living on borrowed time 🙂 If anyone would like to step up and offer their state as refuge, I’ll gladly consider it and offer numerous baked goods should I ever become your new neighbor 🙂
Grate all of your cheese and put it in a large mixing bowl.
Add drained pimentos and mayo.
Stir that up really good.
Add cayenne pepper and hot sauce and stir again until well blended.
Place this in a covered container and refrigerate several hours, or overnight, to allow flavors to marry.
Note: This is an arranged marriage, some might even say forced. I’m okay with that because these ingredients are far too young to know what is best for them so I, as their guardian, have chosen the best possible partners. Of course, this will lead to their eventual demise, but t’will be a noble way to go.
The next day, take all of that pimento cheese along with some zesty dill pickle spears and kettle chips to your Grandmama’s house.
Make a sandwich on some nicely toasted bread. Try to take a picture of it without getting any of your nephew’s legos in the shot.
Give up, because your nephew has too many Legos… decide it would look better with Grandmama holding it anyway.
Ahh, that’s better 🙂
Ingredients
- 1 pound block Sharp Cheddar Cheese*
- 1 cup mayo
- 1 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons hot sauce
- 7 ounce jar pimentos drained
Instructions
- Grate all cheese and place in large mixing bowl with mayo and pimentos. Stir well to mix.
- Add hot sauce and cayenne pepper. Stir until well combined.
- Cover and refrigerate several hours or overnight. Serve on toasted bread, plain bread, or your favorite crackers.
*Can use pre-grated cheese if you prefer
Nutrition
“You can often change your circumstances by changing your attitude”
~ Eleanor Roosevelt
Submitted by Jackie. Submit your quote by clicking here.
In the past couple of months I have tried some they called “Pepper Jack Cheese Spread” and a “Jalapeno pimiento cheese”. Both were great but I did not get a recipe. This recipe sounds great. I am also going to try making some with chopped jalapenos or green chilies. My Nanny always made pimiento cheese and even though she has been gone 13 years people still talk about the stuff. Growing up I was the outcast because I never like it, but I love the spicy versions.
The wonderful white haired lady holding a pimiento cheese sandwich made me think so much of my own grandmother. She always wanted to feed us and always had pimiento cheese (although she didn’t make it herself). I’m not sure I would ever have tasted it were it not for her. She would grill it for us, oh so gooey and divine. Thanks for sharing your love of your grandma. I know I miss mine so much. She’s been gone almost 8 years and something brings her to mind every day. Today it was you.
My mother loathed cooking and we ate as much convenience food as she could find. This included store-bought pimiento cheese., which tasted awful to me. One day in adulthood, I tasted the homemade version, and it was like tasting a new food! Now that your posted your recipe, I can make this myself. Thank you!
Pimento Cheese….golden goodness! Oh my! Thanks for posting this ‘spicy’ recipe. I WILL make it. I was raised on Pimento Cheese. My Mamaw made the Velveeta version and kept it in her now vintage lidded glass refrigerater dish (I now have it 🙂 <3). I still remember her sweet little hand in that cheese mixture (she didn't grate hers, she just let it get soft) and squeezing it through her fingers to mix it well. ( I think that's why she always kept her nails cut short!) LOL It was the absolute BEST! My mom inherited my Mamaw's good cooking skills and she would add a bit of white pepper to hers. I miss them both so much. Enjoy your Grandmama….I'm sure you do. My Mamaw would have celebrated birthday 103 yesterday! BTW/I love your website. Keep up the good work!
We are so spoiled today with all our choppers, blenders, mixers, etc. We don’t know how to do without them sometimes, but people used to do without them! I never heard of anyone mashing cheese with their hands but I can see how it could be done. My grandmother made pimiento cheese too, but she did have one of those clamp-on food grinders (probably used mostly for sausage-making). I remember seeing her running the cheese through that grinder, then she’d run the pimiento through, as it was whole pieces. I was just a young’n then and I don’t know what else she put in there, although it’s a safe bet that she used JFG mayo because she loved that brand. And she swore by JFG coffee, which she brewed in a non-electric percolator on top of the stove. What a blessing to have had our grandmothers to learn from and to love, and them to dote on us! Those who didn’t have that wonderful grandmother role in their lives missed something truly beautiful. My grandmother married young and had children young, as did my Mom. So I always had a relatively youthful grandmother and I enjoyed her on into my adult years. I always treasured my grandparents so much and thank God for them!
If you would like a spicier mix replace the pimento with a chipotle in adobo. This adds heat and a little smoke flavor too.
mmm.. Christy I KEEP Pimento cheese in my fridge and eat it almost daily. I’m addicted. Try the Palmetto brand – yum-oh (but pricey!). I recall my sweet late-mother in law made pimento cheese ONLY at Christmas and would ration it out to friends in small containers. Since she did not own a food processor, she would spend HOURS in the kitchen grating pounds and mounds of cheddar cheese. It was like Christmas gold (I recall she too added a touch of sugar). Personally, I like mine spicey and buy the Jalapeno kind. Good stuff.
I think my favorite part of the whole post was reading that your family had lived in AL before it was a state. I wish I knew how my family came to arrive in TN.