Pimento Cheese Sandwich | Secret Family Recipe

Pimento Cheese Sandwich | Alan’s Pimento Cheese

Today we are going to be making the most delicious pimento cheese sandwich, but first we have to make the Pimento Cheese Spread. This is a secret family recipe which we love to do here. This is my cousin Terry’s secret family recipe. 

This Pimento Cheese Spread was Terry’s late husband Alan’s recipe, which his mother passed down to him. It was his absolute favorite recipe. Alan was always asked to make this pimento cheese spread for parties and gatherings. It was everyone’s favorite. 

Alan was a Georgia boy, born in a small town in Georgia. Then he moved up to Wisconsin where he lived with Terry. And so he would take amazing Wisconsin cheese and good southern cooking and wind up with a Pimento Cheese Spread like this.

Shredding The Cheese with Ease

Take 16 oz of sharp cheddar cheese. If you can get high quality Wisconsin cheese, this is best. But just make sure it’s sharp cheddar cheese.

We’re using a really fun device today called the KitchenAid Slicer Shredder Attachment. It attaches to any KitchenAid Stand Mixer and allows you to shred 16 oz of cheese (or more) in about a minute with very little manual labor. It’s an amazing tool that I highly recommend, especially if you’re going to be making large batches of shredded cheese. This is the way Alan always shredded his cheese for this recipe. 

So, you just have to slice the large block of sharp cheddar into 4 rectangles that will easily fit into the shredder. Use the fine shredder blade, then feed the cheese blocks into the shredder attachment, per KitchenAid’s instructions. Feel free to watch the video in the recipe card to watch us do this.

It’s best to use the stand mixer bowl as your “catching bowl” for the shredded cheese. Then just move the mixing bowl onto the stand mixer once you are done shredding the cheese. Add all your other ingredients into this mixing bowl as they are ready. 

Just FYI, KitchenAid makes a lot of different attachments, and I’ve done reviews on a number of them. In case you want to check them out, here is the KitchenAid Ice Cream Maker Attachment Review and here is the KitchenAid Spiralizer Attachment Review.

Pimento Cheese Spread | The Recipe

Add 1 cup of Duke’s Mayonnaise into the stand mixer with the cheese. If you can, it should be Duke’s. It was Alan’s favorite, it has no sugar and it tastes wonderful. It can be challenging to find in stores in some places, but here is a link to find Duke’s Mayonnaise online, of your convenience. BTW, Duke’s isn’t sponsoring us at all, we just really like Duke’s for this recipe! 

Pimento Cheese Spread | Prepping the Veggies

The next step is to finely dice two Serrano peppers. Remove the seeds and pith membrane as well (unless you like it spicy). Then you’re just going to chop them very finely or even dice or mince them, but do it that way so they’re still a little bit juicy when you mix them so that juice will get into the cheese. That’s the whole idea. Add your minced Serrano peppers into the mixing bowl with the shredded cheese. 

And then the next step is to do the same thing with an onion. We’re going to finely chop a couple tablespoons of an onion..making about 4 oz total. You can accomplish this by slicing off two sliced rounds of onion and chopping that. Basically, you’re going to want a little bit less onion than you have of the peppers. Add the onion into the stand mixer. 

Pimento Cheese Spread | The Pimentos

Have a 4 oz jar of diced pimentos. And you have to drain them. You want to drain them, but don’t mush out all of the juices. Again, the idea is to have the juices go into the cheese. So, drain them, but don’t get too excited about pushing out all the fluid either.

Pimento Cheese Spread | Remaining Ingredients

For the next part, this is all going to happen in the stand mixer. We’re going to put in one rounded teaspoon of garlic powder and then one teaspoon of ground cayenne pepper. It’s spicy, but it’s worth it. It’s worth it. Or as we say, tangy.

Pimento Cheese Spread | Stand Mixer 

You’re going to want to take a flex edge beater paddle attachment and use it with the stand mixer. It has one side that’s silicon. That’s what Alan used to use. And it is the best because you’re scraping all the pimento cheese as it’s being mixed. And so it just keeps scraping the side of the bowl while it’s mixing. It’s such a wonderful tool.

Then we just set it on the lowest setting and let it mix for about a minute.

Pimento Cheese Sandwich | How to Make

Now that we’ve made the pimento cheese, set it to the side or store in an airtight container while we do the next steps.

Take two slices of bread and very lightly toast them. I’m toasting mine in an air fryer for about 1 minute, 30 seconds on each side. I find a subtle crunch of texture pairs perfectly with pimento cheese.

Now take your pimento cheese and spread one to two tablespoons on one slice of bread.

By the way, this recipe is BYOB: Bring Your Own Bread. Whatever bread you like best, use that. I’m using keto bread today, but this sandwich would taste amazing with sourdough, wheat, white, brioche, and even a croissant.

Get your first layer down. You’re going to want to spread another 1 to 2 tablespoon of pimento cheese as a second layer. Really get it in there.

I like to spread it on both sides. So, spread another 1 to 2 tablespoons of pimento cheese on the second slice of bread as a first later. Then add another 1 to 2 tablespoon of pimento cheese.

Now, you don’t have to put in lettuce at this point, but I do like a little lettuce in the center. Just a lovely little slab of lettuce here. Just sort of tuck it in inside. Romaine leaf is lovely for this, but you can use whatever you like best.

Now, this is a trick that I like to do. You can take some avocado oil spray or olive oil spray and you just spray each side of the sandwich, just making sure the bread is very moist on both sides.

At this point, it is so lovely. But I like to slice it at a diagonal right down the middle of the sandwich, so that you can really see the inside, which is absolutely stunning. You can even serve it in an upright position like to showcase the inside of the sandwich.

Pimento Cheese Sandwich | How Does It Taste?

It is so unbelievably delicious. And it’s so much better, honestly, than anything you could get storebought, in my opinion. 

It honestly is not too spicy, even with the cayenne and Serrano peppers. You can put a lot of hotness into cheese and the cheese will absorb a lot of it, so you don’t get that burning sensation in your mouth, which I really appreciate. You just get a savory goodness. A tanginess, if you will!

Thank you to Terry’s husband, Alan, for this incredible recipe. We hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do. Cheers and here’s to you, Alan!