It occurs to me that I could most likely save $$$ if I made my own cheese spread or cheese balls. They would make nice food gifts around the holidays.

Does anyone have a good recipe for making them ?

I'm looking for recipes for the cheddar cheese ones and the Swiss almond ones.

Thanks a bunch !

I wish I had thought to bring a copy of the one we used last night when making them!  I do know it had cream cheese and cheddar cheese in and we rolled them in pecan meal.  And I know that our recipe would have to be scaled a lot to accomodate just making 1 or 2 cheese balls; each batch of our recipe made 4 dozen, give or take!

Could your recipe be frozen ?

I have pecan meal in the freezer. I buy cheddar cheese and cream cheese on sale.

I go through almost 2 cheese balls every 10 days.

That's one reason I'm looking for a recipe so that I can save $$$.

Here's one I've had forever. You can probably adjust it to suit yourself. Cheese balls can be made any which way, once you have the basics down:

Festive and Frugal Cheese Log

Probably the simplest fancy food to gift or serve is a cheese log. Use one pound of softened cream cheese as the base and add things like:

• shredded hard cheese
• minced dried beef
• minced garlic and/or onion
• dried tomato
• caraway seed
• dill seed

Mix well, then roll into a log and refrigerate until firm. Roll in chopped nuts, being careful to cover both ends of the log. Wrap in wax paper. That's all there is to it.

Pat, do you suppose you could freeze them?  Maybe put them in a FoodSaver bag and then freeze?

I've never frozen them, so I couldn't advise you on that.

I make up several for our Chistmas party and at DH request I make some for the Thankgiving table ...

here my recipe

4 oz cream cheese , softened

1/4 cup sour ream

1 cup shredded Swiss cheese

1 cup sharp shredded cheddar cheese

1/4 cup finely chopped onion

2 tablespoon real bacon bits

 2 tablespoon finely chopped pecans

1 tablespoon diced pimietos

1 tablespoon sweet pickle relish

Dash salt & pepper

Toppings

3 tablespoons real bacon bits

2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley

1 1/2teaspoons poppy seeds

In a large bowl beat cream cheese and sour cream until smooth . Stir in the remaining cheeses. onion , bacon . pecans pimientos relish . salt & pepper . cover and refrigeratefor at least 1 hour .

in a small shallow bowl. combine the bacon , parsley,pecans and poppy seeds.Shape cheese mixture into a ball  ( I some times make 2 small balls) roll in the bacon mixture . wrap in plastic wrap refrigerate for at least an hour . 

I alway serve assorted crackers 

my SIL makes a spicy one that really simpe

2 packages of cream cheese

2 packages of chipped beef

1/2 diced  onion

3 Tablespoon horseradish

roll in a ball . then roll in chopped walnuts .

This is the one that I have always used  (I did try it once with the 8oz measurement and it seemed to turn out fine)

Cheese Ball - recipe by my aunt, Margret Evans

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
8 oz cream cheese
2 tubes sharp cheese (Kraft's Squeeze-a-Snack)
1 tube garlic cheese
1 tube hickory smoked cheese
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

Directions:
Bring the ingredients to room temperature to make themeasier to work with.
Mix the ingredients together and shape into two balls.
Roll the balls in chopped nuts, or paprika, etc.
Chill.

 

 Gayla, your cheeseball is almost identical to my "Cheeseball With Everything". I make that every year for Christmas Eve.

As for freezing cheeseballs, I have found out that you can. I wouldn't have thought it would work but it did. I was using the one that is similar to Gayla's recipe. I made the cheeseball, wrapped it in plastic wrap, then foil and froze it. I put the coating ing. in a seperate baggie and froze. When I was ready to use it I thawed it out and then coated it just before serving.

I think the foodsaver bags as suggested would work even better than the plastic wrap and foil like I used. I didn't have a foodsaver at that time or I may have tried it. My MIL gave me a foodsaver for Christmas last year. 

The foodsaver bags are expensive but they would definately keep your cheeseballs better for a longer period of time. The plastic wrap and foil worked O.K. for me but it was only in the freezer for about a week.

If you like to have cheesballs as a regular snack it's easy to make them up from whatever you have on hand. If I have some cream cheese and any other cheese (cheaddar, swiss or whatever) I sometimes throw some together in a bowl and mix it up. I might throw in some chopped onion and peppers or maybe some dry onion soup mix. Sometimes I add dry ranch seasoning or taco seasoning. Whatever suits your fancy at the time. If I have some sour cream on hand I might add some of that to make it extra creamy and more spreadable.

If its just for around home and not a special occassion  I don't even bother making it into a ball. I just put it in a plastic storage bowl and we have a "cheese bowl" instead of a cheese ball LOL.

 

1 pkg cream cheese softened

2 cup shredded cheese (your choice) i use cheddar and mozz.

Garlic Powder to taste

Dash of hot sauce (to taste)

3-4 dash of Worschestier Sauce

Mix and forn into a ball. You can roll in nuts. I normally do not due to the expense of the nuts.

Chill til firm.

This is a receipe I made up over 22 yrs ago when I couldn't find a recipe I liked. We eat this when it isn't firm as well because my family can't always be patient.. LOL