Jalapeno Pimento Cheese Dip

I can eat pimento cheese for dinner, and sometimes, I DO. I do love a good pimento cheese sandwich but sometimes you just need to feel like a scumbag, skip a real dinner, and veg out with a bowl of dip balancing on your stomach while you feed yourself pounds of crackers and dip with New Girl reruns blaring in the background. What makes MY DIP special, is that I grate my jalapeno with a fine grater so that the dip has that heat, but you don’t find yourself biting into a big chunk of raw jalapeno and burning your tongue off. It is a nice subtle heat, and the balance with the cream cheese and ALL THE CHEDDAR really makes this perfect for a lil party or a super filling sad lonely dinner for one.

what you need:

• 4 oz of cream cheese, softened to room temperature half of a normal block
• 6 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 1 cup shredded white cheddar I used Trader Joes Unexpected Cheddar which is my favorite cheese of all time
• 1 1/2 cups shredded smoked cheddar
• 1/4 cup pimento peppers from the little jar
• 1 1/2 tsp of finely grated jalapeno
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp pepper
• 1/8 tsp smoked paprika
• Crackers for dipping!

what you need to do:

• If you bought your cheese in the block, shred it to get nice thick shards.
• Mix the cream cheese with the mayonnaise, pimentos, jalapenos, salt, pepper, and paprika. I like to mix all of this first so that you don’t find yourself mashing up your cheese and creating a cheese ball-ish texture. You want the cheese to stay chunky.

• Add the shredded cheese and gently incorporate, making sure to not smash the cheese against the side of the bowl.
• Cover with plastic wrap and keep in the fridge for 2 hours, but preferably overnight to let the flavors really set in, and serve with crackers!
• You could totally use this to make a sandwich or a burger topping as well.
• Keep airtight in the fridge for up to 5 days.