I have a perfectly good pimento cheese recipe but a cook can always use another, especially if it’s from the guy who makes the Obama family’s Thanksgiving pies. Brian Noyes is an acclaimed baker and café owner in rural Virginia. But he’s not a Southerner by birth so he gets away with tweaking tradition. His pimento cheese has a couple of ingredients I’ve never seen in this cult classic, but not being a Southerner either, I keep an open mind. I met Noyes recently at a party to celebrate his new cookbook, and although the cakes his bakery provided were fabulous, I came home and made the book’s pimento cheese first.
Noyes’s Red Truck Bakery is his second career; he was an art director for the Washington Post and Smithsonian magazine before his side hustle—baking pies—drew the attention of The New York Times. The mention prompted 57,000 mail orders, crashing his website but birthing the bakery in 2009.
In 2016, a letter Noyes sent to President Obama about the Administration’s handling of the economy landed on the President’s desk. A White House speechwriter hand-delivered the President’s response and returned to the White House with a sweet potato pecan pie. As a consequence, Noyes’s first book, Red Truck Bakery Cookbook, has something other authors can only dream about: an enthusiastic back-cover blurb from a former President.
The pimento cheese recipe appears in that book and in his new work, The Red Truck Bakery Farmhouse Cookbook. You’ll need some quick-pickled onions (use his recipe below or my husband’s) so plan ahead. Smoked paprika is Noyes’s other minor transgression, but I’ve been putting that in my pimento cheese for a while now. It’s magic.
Aunt Darla’s Smoky Pimento Cheese
For lunch I’ve been slathering this creamy spread on toast and putting a thin slice of tomato on top. Adapted from Red Truck Bakery Cookbook by Brian Noyes with Nevin Martell (Clarkson Potter). Make the recipe a day ahead if possible; the flavor improves with a rest.
½ cup cream cheese, at room temperature
¼ cup chopped Quick-Pickled Onions (recipe below), plus 1 teaspoon pickling brine
1 teaspoon smoked paprika, or more to taste
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
¼ teasoon cayenne pepper
½ cup jarred roasted red peppers, well drained and finely chopped
1/2 pound grated Cheddar cheese (about 2 cups)
¼ pound grated hot pepper jack cheese (about 1 cup)
1 teaspoon dried chives (I used 1 tablespoon thinly sliced fresh chives)
½ cup mayonnaise
In a food processor, combine the cream cheese, pickled onions, pickling brine, paprika, pepper flakes and cayenne. Process until smooth. Transfer to a large bowl and stir in the red peppers, Cheddar, jack, chives and mayonnaise. Mix until well blended. The pimento cheese will keep, tightly covered, in the refrigerator for up to 10 days.
Makes 5 cups
Quick-Pickled Onions
I haven’t made these onions yet. For the pimento cheese, I used my husband’s pickled red onions, which we already had.
4-1/2 cups cider vinegar
¾ cup sugar
3 tablespoons kosher salt
3 tablespoons pickling spice
6 cups thinly sliced red onions
In a small saucepan, combine the vinegar, sugar, salt and pickling spice and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Cook for 5 minutes to allow the flavors to infuse.
Place the onions in a large glass jar or heavy-duty plastic container. Strain the pickling mixture over the onions. Cover and chill for at least 3 hours before eating. The onions will keep for up to 1 month.
Makes 6 cups