you're making mealtime meaningful.
At a party or holiday event, you will likely find me by the cheese board. You can keep your fancy passed appetizers and hors d’oeuvres, I’m perfectly happy with a few cheeses set out on a cutting board and a couple of crackers to accompany them. It’s all I need. But if you go to the trouble of making a cheese log or a cheese ball… well, then I just couldn’t be happier. That’s cheese heaven. I don’t think I’m alone — every guest is happy to see a cheese log and since they’re so easy to make, you might as well indulge them. Case in point, this Garlic Herb Cheese Log, which is delicious, surprisingly simple, and feels so much more special than just setting out something store-bought.
Before you start thinking that making a cheese log is complicated, let me just stop you there. It’s SO easy. For this particular one, you only need two cheeses: goat and cream cheese. The cream cheese helps to mellow out the goat cheese just a tad, while giving you an even creamier texture. All good things. And then you just need fresh herbs, garlic, some lemon zest, and some chopped pecans.
You simply stir together the cream cheese and goat cheese with some black pepper until it’s nice and smooth…
… and then roll it into a log. You’ll want to wrap it in plastic wrap and chill it for about twenty minutes before you then roll it in all those herbs and lemon zest and chopped nuts.
About those herbs — while we’re going with a mixture of chives, parsley, basil, and oregano here, you can really vary those up as you see fit. A little more basil, tarragon instead of oregano… there’s so many directions you could go with this. Just definitely use fresh and not dried!
Likewise, this works equally well with other nuts — pecans aren’t your only option here. Walnuts are lovely, so are chopped almonds… a pine nut wouldn’t even be amiss.
Once it’s all assembled, chill the log until you’re pretty much ready to serve it. It’s nice to let it sit at room temp a bit before guests arrive so it’s more spreadable and it’s especially nice with a little olive oil drizzle over the top. Enjoy!
Garlic Herb Cheese Log
Yield(s): Serves 6-8
10m prep time
20m inactive
Diet: Gluten-Free, Vegetarian
you're making mealtime meaningful.
Ingredients
- 1 (10 oz) log chèvre goat cheese
- 3 oz cream cheese, softened
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 1/2 tablespoons fresh chives, finely chopped
- 1 1/2 tablespoons fresh parsley, finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon fresh basil, finely chopped
- 1 1/2 teaspoons fresh oregano, finely chopped
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 1/2 teaspoons lemon zest
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup finely chopped pecans
- Olive oil, as needed
Preparation
- To a mixing bowl, add the cream cheese, goat cheese, and black pepper. Stir together until smooth.
- Using your hands, roll the cheese mixture into a log and wrap in plastic wrap. Freeze 20 minutes so it's slightly firm but not frozen solid.
- In a shallow dish, combine the chives, parsley, basil, oregano, garlic, lemon zest, salt, and pecans. Stir to combine.
- Line counter with a piece of parchment paper and spread the herb coating out in a square the same length as the cheese log.
- Place cheese log at the edge of the coating and roll in coating, pressing coating into the cheese so it sticks until evenly coated.
- Chill until ready to serve. Drizzle with olive oil before serving and enjoy!
Recipe adapted from Carlsbad Cravings.