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! 😂
LOVED your site for years…the change is a great look…can’t wait to try the recipes to come! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
Love the new layout. I’m an avid collector of your recipes and ideas. They’re always great but just look a little more elegant!
New website is great, modern clean colour scheme & easy to navigate. Thank you 🙂 Christmas Dozer is just too cute!!
Your website looks so great. And the cheese log looks better than Andy I have seen. I will be making this Christmas Day. Thank you. We love all your recipes.
Love the new site-beautiful pictures. Going to make the cheese log but have to figure out how to sneak the sun dried tomatoes past my son-in-law. Guess I’ll just tell him they are extra salami and hope for the best. Dozer is a doll baby!
Great new web site ! I like it very much. Congrats Nagi
Nagi the website is awesome. The appetizer loaf looks soooo good! Can’t wait to try it for our Christmas gathering.
Just noticed that the scaling for the recipe will allow the first number to change but I can’t get the “20” to change for me, and having it a little smaller would be handy. Thanks so much.
Happy holidays to you and dozer. 😊
Love your recipes and both the old and new website. Thanks.
Site seems pretty kool.
Like your stories re. feeding the less fortunate. Keep an eye on that part of your kingdom. Love the Salsbury Steak. 😉
The website looks great. Very vibrant, clean, readable. Congratulations!
Love the new website! Very easy to find recipes.
Yay for a new website! How exciting!
And that cheese log looks pretty good, too.
Nagi, I have made many of your recipes, several have become family favorites. I’m going to have to try this one – with 2 adult sons home for the holidays, it’s sure to be a winner!
So far, I’m liking the new website – not so fussy as to get lost but rings all the bells and whistles GREAT!
Looks good & clean
Wow! Love the new website and how interactive it is. So much easier to navigate and find old and new recipes to cook.
Hope you have a magical Christmas time!
Love the bright colors of the website, and especially the Dozer page!!!!
Your photography is mouth-watering! Every recipe I read (or see a picture of), I want to make. I like the new website layout. I have one bit of confusion. I clicked on the Quick Dinner Recipes banner from the home page. I thought I could click anywhere on the banner to go to recipes that were “quick.” I discovered that this is not correct. I must click on the Browse Recipes button. All right, got that.
So when I click on that, Dinner Tonight comes up. Since the banner said QUICK dinner recipes, I thought that filter would be preselected (i.e., only quick & easy). I needed to click that filter to have quick recipes show.
It’s easy to overthink this, but if it says Quick Dinner, I expect to see Quick recipes. Maybe the banner could be “Dinner Tonight” instead?
Nagi…the new site is great! Hubby even commented on how bright and easy to read your new site is. The colours work well to highlight instructions and condensing and reformatting the recipe itself is really easy to read and follow.
Thank you for a great recipe site – and for the pics of Dozer….admit to always looking for him first when the recipe comes into my mailbox!
Looks yummy! Definitely will try.
Instant access to Dozer? I LOVE IT. I often open your emails just to see the little guy. Once I see the pictures, I usually have to click on the video (because they’re so short and sweet and load so quickly) and then…. Well, Nagi, truth be told,I keep coming back because you’re so real and everything makes sense. I just don’t have access to many (if any) shortcuts I enjoyed in the US but I know I can always attempt your recipes. Thank you for redesigning your website and keeping it as fresh as your ingredients! I am slowly believing that I can actually cook.