Pimento Cheese Deviled Eggs

Get the Recipe: Pimento Cheese Deviled Eggs

Bring two southern staples together with these tangy, delicious pimento cheese deviled eggs.

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Yield12 eggs

Prep30

Cook10

Total40

Ingredients

Enough water for boiling the eggs
12 eggs
2-3 cups of ice
2 tablespoons, 1oz, cream cheese
3 tablespoons mayonnaise
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon dill pickle juice
½ teaspoon distilled vinegar
½ teaspoon onion, finely grated
2 oz jarred pimento peppers, finely chopped
1⅓ cup, 4oz, extra sharp cheddar cheese, grated

Equipment

1 medium mixing bowl
1 kitchen scale (optional)
Measuring spoons
1 fine mesh grater
measuring Cups
1 medium grater
1 chef knife
1 cutting board
1 spatula or fork
1 stock or soup pot
1 slotted spoon or spider
1 large mixing bowl
1 pastry bag with large piping tip (optional)

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Instructions

First, fill a pot with enough water to cover 12 eggs with 1in (2.5cm) of clearance. Place the pot on your stovetop and bring the water to a gentle boil. Once bubbling, carefully add in the eggs, so they don't crack. Cook the eggs for 10 minutes. I suggest setting a timer to make sure you don’t overcook the eggs.
While they boil, get an ice bath ready. Fill a large bowl about halfway with water and add in 2-3 cups (.5L container) of ice. You can also take out your tools and ingredients for the pimento cheese-egg yolk filling. 9 minutes isn’t a long time, so I wouldn’t begin measuring anything out.
When your timer goes off, turn off the burner and use a slotted spoon or spider to immediately transfer the eggs from the pot to the ice bath. Shock the eggs in the ice water for about 15 minutes.
While they are cooling in the ice bath, start adding the pimento cheese ingredients to a medium mixing bowl. First measure out and add the cream cheese, mayo, garlic powder, dill pickle juice, and vinegar. Then, grate the onion with a microplane or fine grater and add it to the bowl. Before mixing, chop the pimentos on a cutting board. Even the pre-diced ones are a little too big for piping the final filling back into the eggs. Add them to the bowl and mix. I prefer to first mix everything but the cheese really well for a better flavor consistency.
Once mixed, grate the extra sharp cheddar cheese and add that to the bowl, doing a quick second mix. The cheese will break up into smaller pieces, but you don’t need to have the perfect consistency yet, as the egg yolks are still left to add.
Time to peel and half the eggs. Take an egg and tap it against the counter on the top and bottom until it cracks. Rotate to the egg’s side and continue tapping all around the middle of the egg. (Do NOT roll your eggs on the counter) Start peeling where the egg’s shell has come away from the egg the most. You should feel a pocket of air.
Peel until all of the eggs are free of their shells. Then, cut each egg in half, longways. Use a small spoon to pop the egg yolk away from the egg white and into the bowl with the filling. Rinse the egg whites of any residual yolk and set them aside. Mix the egg yolks into the pimento filling. It should become relatively smooth with only the pieces of pimento and some cheese pieces still intact.
At this point you can spoon the pimento cheese-yolk filling into the egg whites or add it to a piping bag and fill them that way. Then, it's time… time to egg-splore a word of deliciousness. (still not sorry!)

Notes

This recipe can be easily halved in 1 of 2 ways:
- 1.) Half the above ingredients and use 6 eggs
- 2.) Make pimento cheese + 6 pimento cheese deviled eggs. Follow the recipe as written but use only 1 tbsp of mayo and no vinegar to make pimento cheese. Then, half of the pimento cheese and to one half, add in 6 egg yolks, 1 tbsp (15ml) mayo, and vinegar to taste. Best of both worlds! YUM!
If you don’t keep pickles in your house or want to buy pickles for such a small amount of juice. Substitute it for distilled vinegar.
The completed pimento cheese deviled eggs will last up to 4 days in the fridge. Make sure to cover them well, so they don’t dry out.
You can make the pimento cheese mix and hard-boiled eggs up to a week in advance. Just make sure to leave the eggs unpeeled. And take the pimento filling out of the refrigerator, to soften, 30 minutes before mixing in the yolks and assembling everything.
Feel free to add more mayo for an even creamier texture and extra vinegar or dill pickle juice to taste.
Also consider adding in some old bay, cayenne, or a hot sauce of your choice to the filling. My favorite toppings include anything pickled: okra, cucumbers, jalapeños, radishes, etc and/or largish pieces of ritz cracker.

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