Smoked Cheese Balls
Cheeseballs are great... but SMOKED cheese balls are a whole other level of fantastic!
Servings: 16 4 x 8 oz cheese balls
Calories: 274kcal
Equipment
- Smoker or Grill
- Cold Smoker Attachment Kit
- Parchment Paper
- Wood Chips*
Ingredients
- 1 Small Onion chopped
- 5 Garlic cloves pressed
- 2 tablespoon Dijon Mustard
- 2 Bricks Cream Cheese (½ lb each) softened
- Splash Dry White Wine
- 1 ½ lb Cheese of Choice grated
- Salt, Pepper, Smoked Paprika To Taste
- Stuff to roll them in*
Instructions
- Prepare your smoker for cold smoking, based on your smoker’s instructions. Get smoke going!
- Place onion and garlic into food processor, blitz until finely chopped. Add mustard, cream cheese, and white wine, blitz until very smooth. Add cheese, blitz once more until mixture reaches desired texture. Taste, season with salt, pepper, and/or smoked paprika, if desired.
- Line a small baking sheet or plate (one that will fit in your smoker!) with parchment paper, spread cheese mixture over it.
- Cold smoke cheese mixture for 10 minutes. Remove from smoker, stir, and cold smoke for another 10 minutes.
- Remove cheese mixture from smoker, taste. If you'd like more smoke flavour, stir again and cold smoke for another 10 minutes or so... but I tend to find 20 minutes of smoke to be a good amount of flavour. Your mileage may vary, depending on your smoker and personal taste preference
- Divide mixture into 4 equal portions. Roll each into a ball, chill for 30 minutes.
- Carefully press chopped topping choices into all exposed surfaces of the cheese balls. Brush away excess topping.
- Wrap cheese balls tightly in plastic, chill for 1 hour. Line plate or baking sheet with a fresh piece of parchment.
- Unwrap cheese balls, arrange on baking sheet or plate. Return to smoker for another 10-20 minutes or so.
- Remove cheese balls from smoker, wrap in fresh plastic wrap, re-molding to nicer ball shapes if necessary.
- Chill cheese balls for another 2 hours before serving,
Notes
* Stuff to roll them in:
- Nuts. Finely chopped pecans, thinly sliced almonds, etc
- Crushed corn/potato chips, or pretzels
- Crushed cornflakes or other cereal
- Sesame, sunflower, pumpkin, and/or flax seeds
- Crispy bacon, drained well and finely chopped
- Fresh herbs - we love basil with this.
- Citrus zest, coarse ground black pepper, poppy seeds, and/or dried pepper flakes as an accessory flavour in your topping
Nutrition
Calories: 274kcal | Carbohydrates: 3g | Protein: 12g | Fat: 24g | Saturated Fat: 14g | Cholesterol: 76mg | Sodium: 377mg | Potassium: 97mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 1g | Vitamin A: 807IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 339mg | Iron: 1mg