With the holidays just around the corner, I'm sharing a delicious and beautiful idea for cheese balls shaped like Christmas ornaments. I used a simple, classic mixture of cheese, garlic, and eggs as my base — just a little fewer eggs than usual. Eggs are still a nice addition since they make the appetizer more delicate in flavor, but the cheesy taste should still come through strongly. For the coatings I used dried cranberries, pistachios, imitation crab sticks, and cheese (the same kind used in the balls themselves). You could also use walnuts, colorful bell peppers, chopped parsley, or dill. And here's another fun idea from Kamelenta — with grated carrots. The bottom line is you can make plenty of balls in every color, and your guests will love trying each variety!
Ingredients:
- 200 g cheese
- 100 g cream cheese
- 2 hard-boiled eggs
- 1-3 cloves garlic
- mayonnaise
- For coating (your choice):
- pistachios
- dried cranberries
- imitation crab sticks
- cheese
- green onions (for decoration)
How to cook cheese balls "Christmas Ornaments"
Finely grate the cheese and eggs, then add the cream cheese and minced garlic. Mix in 1-2 tablespoons of mayonnaise (sour cream works too) and stir everything together thoroughly.
By the way, for the ones coated in imitation crab sticks or cheese, you can roll a small piece of imitation crab stick right into the center as a surprise. You can also tuck in an olive, a grape, etc.
Now let's make the "strings" for the ornaments. Split the tip of a green onion leaf in half lengthwise — these become your two "strings." From the wider part of the leaf, cut pieces about 1 centimeter long.
Carefully insert it into the top of each cheese ball. Personally, I loved the ones with imitation crab sticks and dried cranberries the most, while my husband preferred the pistachio ones. Our daughter devoured all of them indiscriminately — though she did systematically pull out and set aside every piece of green onion! ))
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