Best Gluten-Free Pimento Cheese

We love pimento cheese around our house. It's great on a stick of celery, between two slices of Udi's Gluten-Free White Sandwich Bread, or open-faced on bread and toasted under the broiler. And the best thing about this recipe is how EASY it is to make. You won't buy the cheap stuff in the tub again! And this recipe lasts in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks!

Pam's Perfect Pimento Cheese

4 cups of freshly grated extra-sharp cheddar cheese**
1/2 Texas sweet onion (or Vidalia/New Mexico variety) grated
1/4 c. homemade mayonnaise (see my earlier post)
1 (4 oz.) jar of pimentos, drained and finely chopped
Dash of Tabasco
Coarse sea salt and freshly ground pepper


Combine grated cheese, grated onion and pimentos in a bowl. Stir well. Add pimentos and hot sauce. Season with salt and pepper, and you're ready to go!

**you MUST grate it yourself -- pre-grated cheese doesn't make creamy pimento cheese

Saturday Sandwiches Part One: Homemade Mayonnaise

Every Saturday, we can usually be found eating sandwiches for lunch. Of course, the bread is Udi's Gluten-Free, either White or Multi-Grain. But their bread is so good, you'd never know it doesn't have gluten. In fact, my older daughter, who doesn't have celiac, loves Udi's -- and she's very picky. We buy it frozen and just stick it in the fridge for fresh bread at any time.

Today's sandwiches are Cucumber and Pimento Cheese. My MIL Julia Ann taught me how to make cucumber sandwiches just a few months ago. This is yet another favorite that it took me 46 years to finally experience! Go figure.

The pimento cheese sandwich is also new to the repertoire. My youngest daughter always used to have an allergic reaction to Price's Pimento Cheese spread, so I quit buying it about 13 years ago. I recently ran across a recipe in a beloved cookbook, and I decided to give it a try -- homemade without any of the artificial gunk used in commercial spreads. So let's begin.

Start with HOMEMADE MAYONNAISE!! All you need is a food processor. There are numerous ways to make mayo at home, but for fool-proof mayo, you MUST have a food processor. I have a Cuisinart, which has a feed tube with a tiny hole in the bottom which is expressly used to add oil to salad dressings and MAYONNAISE! Julia Ann is a big fan and maker of homemade mayo, and this is another tradition I am swiping for my own kitchen.

Homemade Mayonnaise

1 c. of canola oil (I use Wesson) at room temperature

2 large egg yolks

Juice from 1/2 lemon

1 teaspoon of dijon mustard

Put the egg yolks, lemon juice and mustard in food processor bowl. Pulse for 10 seconds. Then turn on the processor and add all the oil to the feed tube. Keep it going until all the oil has run through the tube into the mixture. Season with salt and pepper. Then remove the mayonnaise from the work bowl and put into an airtight container. This will keep for a couple of days.

The finished product -- thick and glossy with specks of pepper. YUM!

This is what your mayo looks like when it's ready to put into an airtight container.

Notice the biscuit-colored feeding tube at the top of the Cuisinart attachment. That's where you put the oil, which will then drizzle slowly in the mix. This feeding tube is the secret to perfectly incorporating oil into the egg, mustard and lemon juice.

Now you're all set to make sensational salad dressings, sandwich spreads, potato salad, cole slaw, chocolate mayo cake...the sky is the limit!! So make that mayo, and we'll do the sandwiches tomorrow.

Coming tomorrow: Part Two with recipes for the Pimento Cheese and Cucumber Sandwiches