Chipotle Chili Cheese Crostini Appetizer

Talk about allit­er­a­tion, this Chipo­tle Chili Cheese Cros­tini Appe­tizer had not only our hearts singing from the let­ter C but our lips buzzing from the delight­fully pleas­ing taste of this bite sized starter. I cre­ated it after being con­tacted by Chal­lenge Dairy about the pos­si­bil­ity of cre­at­ing a recipe with their but­ter as an ingre­di­ent. I had never had their but­ter before, it’s only sold out West, but after try­ing it I can say it’s really good. A rich creamy but­ter & so AFTER try­ing it I dug into whip­ping up a tasty bite.

What you need:

4 ounces of Cream Cheese
4 ounces of Goat Cheese
1/2 Cup of Shred­ded Ched­dar
1/2 Stick of Soft­ened But­ter
1 tsp of Chipo­tle Chili Pow­der
3 Crispy pieces of Bacon
French Baguette Bread
1Tbsp of But­ter (You will melt this for the bread)

First, get your bacon going on the stove. While it’s crisp­ing you can pre­pare the rest of the dish.

Add all your cheese and but­ter to a bowl. Make sure but­ter is soft.

Cream cheeses & but­ter together. I used a spoon but if you wanted you could use a mixer.

Flip your bacon. Oh, bacon…everything is bet­ter with but­ter and bacon. I am pos­i­tive of that.

Now take your bacon out & dice it up. Crunchy…bacon…drool…

Add your diced bacon & your Chipo­tle Chili Pow­der to the bowl of cheeses & but­ter. You can always start with 1/2 a tea­spoon and then go from there. It does pack a punch. If you are a wild one you can always add more than even the full tea­spoon I went with.

When it mixes together it has an orange look to it. It’s spic­ing things up a bit.

Slice your bread, about an 1 inch thick (or a lit­tle more) is what I like. You can do less or you can buy the prepacked petite bread slices for appetizers.

Now take the melted but­ter (you can microwave it for like 10 sec­onds) & brush one side of your bread.

It starts like this…Toast for about 2 min­utes under the broiler.

And it looks like this, just a lit­tle crunch around the edges. Not too toasty now.

Add a tea­spoon of your spread on top of the toasted bread.

Put back under the broiler for 2 min­utes, it will warm up nicely. I decided to add a gar­nish of some freshly cut green onions, it blended very nicely with the dish. The appe­tizer does pack a kick with the Chipo­tle Chili but I really liked how it was bal­anced with the warmed creami­ness and then the crunch of the freshly toasted bread. My kids couldn’t get enough of these & Hubby kept ask­ing if I could make them for Christ­mas Eve. So they were a BIG hit here.

Also, Chal­lenge Dairy is host­ing a a chance to win A Taste of the West for a 7-day/6-night trip for 4 peo­ple to the incred­i­ble Moun­tain Sky Guest Ranch in Montana’s Par­adise Val­ley, just North of Yel­low­stone National Park. Air­fare, food, accom­mo­da­tions and cer­tain activ­i­ties are all-included in this $17,000 lux­ury get­away. They are also giv­ing away a $850 kitchen pack­age for an addi­tional win­ner from Spice Islands and OXO. So go ahead and enter now!

I’d like to give a big thank you to Chal­lenge Dairy, Spice Islands, & OXO for pro­vid­ing some sup­plies for this recipe. It was a lot of fun to make and to eat!

Tagged as: appetizer, cheese dish, cooking, crostini, food and drink, homecooking, homemade, how-to, meatless, party, recipe, side dish, vegetarian