Whipped Feta with Hot Honey (Easy 10-Minute Appetizer!)
Whipped feta is what happens when we take an already fabulous cheese, throw it into a food processor with a few friends and somehow make it even better. It’s creamy, tangy, salty and ridiculously smooth, then we cover the whole situation in hot honey because restraint has never made an appetizer more interesting.
Even better, this takes about 10 minutes and requires absolutely no cooking unless we decide to toast the nuts. Which we do recommend, but nobody from The Impatient Kitchen is coming over to check. 😉
Ingredients
- 8 oz feta cheese, crumbled
- 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- 1 small garlic clove
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 2–3 tablespoons hot honey
- 1/4 cup chopped pistachios or pecans
- Flaky sea salt, optional
- Fresh thyme or parsley, optional
- Pita chips, crackers or toasted bread, for serving
Instructions
- Add the feta, Greek yogurt, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and black pepper to a food processor.
- Blend until smooth and creamy, stopping to scrape down the sides as needed. Give it a solid minute or two. Feta needs a little convincing before it abandons its crumbly ways.
- Spread the whipped feta onto a shallow serving bowl or plate, making a few swoops in the top with the back of a spoon so we have somewhere fabulous for the honey to collect.
- Drizzle generously with hot honey.
- Scatter the pistachios or pecans over the top and finish with a tiny pinch of flaky sea salt and fresh herbs if using.
- Serve immediately with pita chips, crackers or toasted bread and watch something that took 10 minutes disappear in approximately four.
Variations
- Use block feta if possible. It tends to be creamier and less dry than the pre-crumbled stuff, which is convenient but occasionally behaves like tiny salty packing peanuts.
- Adjust the texture. If the feta is still thicker than you want, add another spoonful of Greek yogurt or a little olive oil and keep blending.
- No hot honey? Regular honey plus a pinch of red pepper flakes gets us remarkably close without requiring another trip to the grocery store.
- Toast the nuts. A few minutes in a dry skillet makes pistachios or pecans dramatically better. Annoying but true.
- Make it sweeter. Add chopped dates or dried cranberries for a sweet-salty version.
- Make it spicy. Add extra red pepper flakes or a little chili crisp over the top.
- Make it ahead. Whip the feta and refrigerate it, then add the hot honey and toppings right before serving. Let it sit out for 15–20 minutes first so it gets creamy again instead of serving everyone refrigerated cheese spackle.
If you’re building an appetizer spread, pair this with our Hot Honey Baked Brie for anyone who believes the appropriate number of cheeses at a party is “more.”
Our Whipped Herb Cheese Crostini, Easy Shrimp Cocktail Platter and Spinach & Cheese Puff Pastry Pinwheels are also ridiculously easy additions when we want the appetizer table to look considerably more ambitious than the actual amount of work involved.
