Kick off the holidays with this festive Christmas Appetiser – an Italian Cheese Log! It’s like an antipasto platter in dip form packed with minced salami, olives, peppers, green onions, a hefty dose of Italian seasonings, AND topped with sun dried tomato.
Terrific easy, make-ahead economical alternative to expensive cheese platters – and bursting with the holiday cheer!!!
A FESTIVE CHRISTMAS APPETIZER IDEA!
Bringing on some Christmas cheer with this festive Italian Cheese Log!!
It’s a far cry from your usual cheeseball with a handful of token flavourings. This one is jam packed with flavour…. loaded with Italian flavours!!
The secret ingredients in this are finely chopped salami and sun dried tomato. Taking the time to mince the salami really makes a difference because then it’s all throughout the cheese log – nobody wants to be that person who takes a giant scoop of dip only to find it’s completely devoid of salami!
As for the sun dried tomato – well, I contemplated putting it in the cheese log, but I simply couldn’t resist how great it looks when piled on top. Add a few sprigs of rosemary, and it just looks so fabulously festive – it’s a perfect Christmas appetiser for sharing!! 🎄🎄🎄
WHY YOU NEED THIS IN YOUR LIFE!
It would be so easy to ramble on and on about how great this Italian Cheese Log is, but you don’t need that. So let me just get right down to why you’ll love this!!
✅ Looks fabulous – a great Christmas appetiser made for sharing!
✅ Tastes incredible – packed with flavour!
✅ Easy
✅ Make ahead – keeps for up to a week*
✅ Makes loads
✅ But can also be scaled down
✅ Economical alternative to expensive cheese platters
✅ Adaptable and versatile! Skip the salami to make it meatless, change up the add ins!
* Subject to shelf life of salami
AN ANTIPASTO PLATTER – IN CHEESE LOG FORM!
I just love the colours in this. Even making it brings on the holiday cheer – look at all those colours! ↑↑↑
We’ve got salami, olives, chargrilled peppers (I like to use the jar with mixed colours – yellow and red – just for extra colour), cheese, and a nice hit of freshness from minced green onion.
Add a good dose of Italian seasonings – I like to make my own simple mix here but you can absolutely substitute with an Italian seasoning mix – then simply mix it all together, scrap into a loaf pan or freeform it into the shape of a log and refrigerate.
The refrigeration time is to firm it up so it can be turned out onto a platter and also to give it time for the flavours to meld. It’s terrific made on the day, but it’s even better the next day… and the next… and the next!
QUICK FESTIVE LOOK
Decorating it is my favourite part – the beauty of it being that it’s so easy!! I literally just dump an entire jar of sun dried tomatoes over the top – oil and all.
The oil is infused with flavour and it’s part of the overall eating experience. So with every bite, you have crisp salty crackers, the soft flavour packed Cheese Log, some extra pops of flavour from sun dried tomato AND juiciness from the sun dried tomato oil.
Ahhhh, it’s the perfect bite!!! 😇
If your people are more civilised than mine, then consider serving this Italian Cheese Log with small cheese knifes to spread onto crackers.
But if your people are like mine, you’ll skip the cutlery and just let everyone dive in with their hands, grabbing crackers and dunking it straight into the cheese log.
Yep, it’ll get messy. All that effort you go to, prettying it up and they are going to annihilate it.
And that’s totally ok. That’s what sharing food is all about, right?? Especially during the festive season! 😂 – Nagi x
MORE CHRISTMAS APPETISER IDEAS!
CHRISTMAS APPETISER – ITALIAN CHEESE LOG!
WATCH HOW TO MAKE IT
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Christmas Appetiser: Italian Cheese Loaf
Ingredients
Cheese Log:
- 500g/ 1 lb cream cheese , softened (Note 1)
- 1/3 cup sour cream (Note 2)
- 1/2 tsp EACH thyme, oregano, basil, rosemary, black pepper OR 1 tsp Italian Seasoning
- 1 tsp EACH garlic powder, salt, red pepper/chilli flakes (adjust to taste)
- 2 cup cheddar or other cheese , freshly grated (Note 3)
- 280g / 9 oz roasted peppers , drained and finely chopped
- 180g / 6 oz salami , finely chopped (Note 4)
- 3/4 cup green olives , finely chopped
- 1/3 cup green onion , finely minced (3 – 4 stalks)
Topping/serving:
- 220g / 7 oz sun dried tomato strips with OIL , roughly chopped
- 1/4 cup parsley , finely chopped (or chives)
- Rosemary sprigs (decoration)
- Jatz or other crackers , for serving
Instructions
- Spray a loaf pan with oil then line with cling wrap with overhang.
- Mix Cheese Log ingredients together. Taste and adjust salt if needed (bear in mind saltiness of crackers you are serving with).
- Scrape into loaf pan and level surface, pressing to remove air pockets. Smaller pan = taller loaf.
- Cover with cling wrap overhang and refrigerate for 4 hours+ (up to 1 week).
- Turn out onto platter, peel off cling wrap.
- Top with sun dried tomato and pour over oil. Garnish with parsley and rosemary sprigs to give it a festive look.
- Best to serve closer to room temp than fridge cold. Serve with crackers! Knives for smearing optional – it’s soft enough to scoop with crackers.
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
LIFE OF DOZER
Cute Christmassy photos of Dozer is all part of the Christmas tradition. Except…… he fell asleep mid photo shoot! 😂
Love the new website! Really easy to navigate and the photos are stunning…making everything verrrrrrrry tantalizing!
My whole family loves all of your recipes, though I confess your Chinese recipes are our special favorites (we are a mixed Chinese (Cantonese)/gwai-lo family and your recipes have been spot-on for reproducing our favorite dishes.
Hi Nagi and Dozer !
Great job on your new website !! Wishing you a fabulous day !!!
Love your site “refresh” feels much easier on the eye – well done, must have been fun working through the changes!
Perfect timing for your cheese log! I have to take sharing plate tonight so this is it! 😊
I like the new website, seems easy to find things and recipes print up nicely. One comment, where you have light grey text, that’s hard to read and will be even harder for someone who has trouble with color blindness or contrast. Black or dark blue or dark grey text would be better.
Your new website is great! Layout is nice and so easy to search and filter. Always love trying out your recipes.
Yummmm!
Hi, Nagi!
LOVE the new website! Hoping for that fabulous knife!
Merry Christmas to you and Dozer!
Donna
I love your recipes Nagi, you are my go-to for recipe ideas. Your new web-site looks great, I looked at a couple of recipes that were featured today, didn’t see any flaws in the web-site. Keep up the good work.
Like the new site. Keep featuring Dozer…he’s looking very Christmasy here.
Your new site looks awesome and I love your recipies. The log is beautiful
The Italian cheese log while be on my Christmas Eve menu looks great ! Love me some Dozer tell him I hope he gets all he wants for Christmas as well as you !
Love your recipes
Love your style.
Love your new site
That’s a lot of love !
So glad I found your website last year … this update is beautiful!
Thanks for the recipe. Im going to mke this
The redesign is great! I love being able to filter by “quick & easy” only (if this was available before, I didn’t notice!).
The log looks so savoury and festive.
Wow, Nagi! I really love the new look – very clean and streamlined! One thing that I might suggest – the text you use for the instructions in your ingredients list (ie ‘chopped’ or ‘at room temp’ etc) is a light grey on my system, and is not as easy to read as everything else – perhaps a light blue or something would give you better contrast?
Otherwise I love the new site. I really love how uncluttered it is. And one very important thing – at least from my POV. One thing that I have always appreciated about your site (and still DO!) is that when I scroll past the embedded video, it does NOT try to put up a scaled down video in the corner of my browser window like so many other recipe blogs do. That has always annoyed me, as it won’t ever let me close it until it’s played five seconds or more of the leading ad. Thank you SO MUCH for not doing that!
Cheers, and I hope you have a GREAT holiday, and have lots of time to play with Dozer!
(oh… and the cheese log looks fab! ^_-)
Love the new look and ease of searching your recipes!
Love your new web site!!
You just made my favorite go to web site so much easier to find that one of a kind delicious dish…
Happy Holidays!!
Wonderful new website Nagi!! Love it, and I’d love to go into the draw for the knife, thank you xx
Loving the new website Nagi! Just one question on this recipe though – do I *have* to wait till Christmas to make it? Looks too good to wait 🙂 p.s. Dozer is adorable, hope he had a good snooze!