Pimento cheese fries are my answer to Southern tailgating snack cravings! Bacon and green onions complete the dish for the perfect finger food.
If you stand close enough to me, you can smell the pimento cheese oozing from my pores.
Okay, not really, but I do love pimento cheese. But you guys already knew that, right? So recently, when I was dreaming about what sorts of things I could make you guys for Super Bowl Sunday, I couldn’t believe that I just now thought of pimento cheese fries. I mean, come on. Cheese and fries go together like chocolate and peanut butter. How could this be?
Oh well. All that matters is that I did think of pimento cheese fries, and now I am giving them to you. Now, let me tell you my recipe development method. I almost always start by digging through my cookbooks and searching online to see how other people have done what I want to do, or at least something similar. I wasn’t surprised to find quite a few recipes for pimento cheese fries, but what I was honestly surprised by was the complexity of the recipes that I found.
Pimento cheese is simple food. I mean, it’s still in a very trendy phase right now (I think we’re experiencing kind of a Southern food Renaissance, and I’m A-okay with that) but at its core pimento cheese is still that spread that our grandmothers put on Colonial white bread with Lays potato chips for lunch. Or if they wanted to get super-fancy with it, maybe it got cut into little triangles or spread on store-bought croissants (because whose grandmother ever dreamed of making her own croissants? Not mine!) for a baby or wedding shower. So when I saw all the things that other people were putting on their pimento cheese fries, I was a little shocked. I mean, to each his or her own, but there was no version that was just plain and simple like mine.
At the end of the day, pimento cheese fries need little to make them delicious: fries. pimento cheese. bacon. chopped green onions. Amen and amen. You don’t even need a serving dish…just put some trivets down on your table and set your baking sheet right on top of it. We ain’t fancy, y’all. We just want pimento cheese fries.
Mary
Yield: 4 appetizer servings
10 minPrep Time:
38 minCook Time:
48 minTotal Time:
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Ingredients
- 2 large potatoes, scrubbed
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 tablespoon olive oil or olive oil spray
- 1/2 cup pimento cheese (store-bought or use my recipe )
- 4 strips bacon, cooked and crumbled
- 2 green onions, thinly sliced
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 450 degrees and bring a large pot of water to boil.
- Cut the potatoes lengthwise into 1/4 inch wide strips. Put one teaspoon of the salt into the boiling water and add the potatoes to the pot. Boil for 3 minutes then drain in a colander and let stand for at least 5 minutes, shaking them from time to time to get as much of the water off as possible.
- If using olive oil (not spray) place the potatoes into a bowl and toss with the olive oil and the remaining teaspoon of salt then spread on a sheet pan. If you are using olive oil spray, spread the potatoes on a sheet pan, spray liberally with olive oil, then sprinkle with salt.
- Bake the fries, stirring every 5 minutes, until golden and crispy, 25-30 minutes.
- Dollop the pimento cheese, about a teaspoon at a time, all over the fries. Bake for another 5 minutes, until the cheese melts. Sprinkle with bacon and green onions and serve immediately.
Notes
If you prefer, you can use frozen fries. Just use whatever amount you'd need for four servings and prepare according to package directions then top with pimento cheese and proceed as directed.
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