Homemade Flavored Cream Cheeses

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If you love bagels as much as I do, then t s tme to take your love affar to the next level wth homemade flavored cream cheese. I’ve got three easy and tasty recpes to get you started.

Table Of Contents

How to Make Homemade Flavored Cream Cheese
Use Regular Cream Cheese or Neufchatel, but not Whpped Cream Cheese8 Ounces Cream Cheese + 1/4 Cup Mx-Ins = A Happy BalanceStart wth Softened Cream Cheese
Flavored Cream Cheese IdeasHomemade Flavored Cream Cheese Recpes
Vegge Cream CheeseScallon Cream CheeseStrawberry Cream Cheese

I love bread products and of all of them one of my favortes s bagels. There s somethng truly specal about how soft and chewy they are, but what can make them absolutely exceptonal s what you put on them.

Whle stckng wth classc plan cream cheese or butter s always a good opton, I love to top my bagels wth lots of flavors and textures to make them really fun. Dependng on my mood and what I have on hand, I wll sometmes opt for lox (smoked salmon) wth capers and tomato slces or an egg patty for a fantastc egg sandwch. But more often than not, my choce s vegge cream cheese topped wth slced vegetables.

After buyng a number of dfferent brands of vegge cream cheese, however, I found that they never had as many vegetables n them as I wanted, so I decded to experment and make my own. The outcome was better than I could have hoped! It tasted so much fresher and snce the vegetables had just been added, they had much more of a crunch, whch I loved.

And, because I love cream cheese so much, once I had such success wth vegge cream cheese, expermentaton wth other flavored cream cheeses seemed lke the next logcal step.

How to Make Homemade Flavored Cream Cheese

As you wll see, makng your own flavored cream cheeses s ncredbly easy. Below are three dfferent recpes to get you started: vegge cream cheese, scallon cream cheese, and strawberry cream cheese. All three have gotten bg thumbs up from those who have tred them. In fact, everyone agrees that the homemade versons have more flavor and depth to them and who doesn’t want to better flavor, especally when t’s so easy to make?!

As I have expermented wth homemade cream cheese, I have realzed that there are some rules that seem to pretty consstently apply when flavorng your plan cream cheese.

Use Regular Cream Cheese or Neufchatel, but not Whpped Cream Cheese

I’m a bg fan of regular cream cheese, but f you are someone who prefers a lower fat varety, I recommend usng Neufchatel rather than whpped cream cheese. Ths s because the thnner consstency of the the whpped verson means t won’t hold your mx-ns as well.

8 Ounces Cream Cheese + 1/4 Cup Mx-Ins = A Happy Balance

There are some exceptons to ths rule (see the strawberry cream cheese recpe below), but as a general rule, 8 ounces of cream cheese plus 1/4 cup of fnely dced mx-ns seems to be a great rato. You get a nce balance of creamness from the cheese and crunch and flavor from the mx-ns.

Start wth Softened Cream Cheese

Whether you use regular cream cheese or Neufchatel, you’ll want to allow t to soften a lttle. Ths s for two reasons.

Mxng flavorngs nto cream cheese that s rght out of the frdge s possble, t just s a lttle more dffcult. If the ngredents you are mxng n are softer, they rsk gettng completely smushed, whch I fnd takes away from havng a satsfyng texture.

Flavored Cream Cheese Ideas

Once you have tred one (or more) of the homemade flavored cream cheese recpes below, I encourage you to get creatve as well and experment wth your own favorte mx-ns!

Below you wll fnd recpes for homemade versons of vegge, scallon, and strawberry cream cheese, but here are some other deas that I have been playng around wth. If you try any of them, please let me know how they came out!

Olve Cnnamon and fnely chopped rasns (or cranberres) Cnnamon sugar (tp: brown sugar melts more effectvely nto the cream cheese than granulated sugar wll) Lox (smoked salmon) Fresh herb Chve Blueberry (I’d use the strawberry cream cheese recpe to gude you on ths one) Mxed berry (I’d use the strawberry cream cheese recpe to gude you on ths one)

Homemade Flavored Cream Cheese Recpes

Vegge Cream Cheese

Place 8 oz. of softened cream cheese or Neufchatel n a medum bowl. Mx ¼ cup of a combnaton of fnely chopped or mnced vegetables such as chves, carrots, and red or yellow bell peppers. Add black pepper, f desred.

Other vegetable mx-n optons nclude: grape tomatoes (other tomatoes have too much lqud), celery, seeded or Persan cucumber, and radshes.

Scallon Cream Cheese

Place 8 oz. of softened cream cheese or Neufchatel n a medum bowl. Mx n ¼ cup fnely slced scallons. Add black pepper, f desred.

Strawberry Cream Cheese

Ths recpe s a lttle dfferent from the others for three reasons:

In order to get suffcent strawberry flavor, a full 1/2 cup of strawberres s needed. Strawberry cream cheese s tradtonally sweet, whch means we need to add sweetener to t. The addton of the powdered sugar also helps to counter-balance the addtonal mosture that the strawberres release, so that you stll have a creamy spread.

Place 8 oz. of softened cream cheese or Neufchatel n a medum bowl. Mx n 1/2 cup fnely chopped fresh or frozen strawberres (thawed) and 1/4 cup powdered sugar.

And f you want to par them wth amazng bagels, make sure to check out my Whole Wheat Bread Machne Bagels recpe!

Do you have a favorte cream cheese flavor? I’d love to hear about t n the comments!