Cheese Ball

Cheese balls are so easy to make it just astounds me that people buy them in the supermarket. There is a basic formula to a cheese ball.  Equal parts of cream cheese and finely shredded cheese...from there you can add whatever flavor you want like ranch, onion, etc.  Roll it in some nuts and you are done!  Here is my basic cheese ball recipe.

Onion Cheese Ball

8 oz. Cream Cheese

8 oz. finely shredded Cheddar Jack Cheese

1 pkg. Dry Onion Soup Mix

1/2 C. Pecans

Crackers

First start with soft cream cheese

Add your shredded cheese

Add your Onion Soup Mix

Mix it all together with a fork

Place it in the center of a piece of seran wrap

You want a piece big ehough to go around the cheese

Bring up the edges of the plastic and twist to help

form the cheese into a ball

Place nuts into your serving bowl.  I used pecans but you

can use other types of nuts

Unwrap your cheese ball and roll it in the nuts rolling and pressing

 until all the nuts are attached to the cheese

This whole process from start to finish takes about 5 minutes.

  Serve with crackers

It is delicious - but this does have a strong onion flavor so if you like a little less you could use half of the soup mix, or you could double the cheese and nuts and get 2 cheese balls.

This is the cheese ball I make most often.  There was a family dinner long ago where my mother in law brought a cheese ball that had pineapple and green pepper in it.  I thought it sounded bad and turned up my nose a little...but it was actually really good.  She gave me the recipe and I know I have it somewhere.  I wanted to include it with this post but if you could only see what my recipe cabinet looks like you would understand why I stopped looking for it after a half hour.  If I find the recipe I will come back into this post and add it later.  Just get creative with your cheese ball putting what you like in there...use your favorite cheese, and flavoring..any dry mix will do..you can make an Asian flavor with sesame seeds on the outside, a taco flavor with crushed corn chips on the outside...go crazy!