Baked Pickles with Havarti Cheese

OK, a break from sweets! I have a few other dessert recipes to put up, but thought I would post this appetizer recipe first. Have you ever had fried pickles? I love pickles! And hey, deep frying just about anything is usually always good tasting. However, I do not own (nor do I want to) a deep fat fryer and no matter how good it tastes, I don’t really need those extra fat and calories.

I have been wanting to make this recipe for a long time. I was inspired by Labby’s Bar & Grill in north Fargo, by the Fargodome. I went there about a year ago now, and a colleague was a bit hungry and ordered their fried pickles. Well, these were not like any fried pickles I had ever seen friends. These were long spears of pickles along with Havarti cheese, wrapped in an egg roll wrapper and deep fried until crisp. They. Were. So. Amazing. I knew I had to make these at home. Fast forward another full year…

This is all you really need to make these appetizer. These would be great for a party to cut into bite sizes and pass around.

Baked Pickles:

• Good quality dill pickle spears (I highly recommend Claussen – they are so good)
• Egg roll wrappers
• Havarti cheese (others would probably work well, such as mozzarella or maybe even Pepperjack)

Directions:

• Drain pickles of juice.
• Cut similar sized pieces of cheese and pickles.
• Wrap and enclose in your egg roll wrapper. Use water to seal, if needed.
• Brush your wrappers with oil.
• Bake at 400 until golden brown. About 10-15 minutes.
• Alternatively, you could deep fry these, or fry them in a skillet.
• Serve with ranch dipping sauce, spiked with hot sauce.

I cut the cheese (ha ha!) and pickles so they were uniform in size. Havarti is a great choice here as it is very buttery and mild – something that would make a good fried cheese nugget now that I think of it.

Take a spear and slice of cheese and wrap in your egg roll wrapper. Be sure to seal it and that everything is closed up nice and tight so the cheese can’t escape when heated.

I only made a few since it was just Mr. FeistyEats and I trying these. I could have baked them longer, but I was itching to eat these! One of my pickles was not wrapped properly and cheese did escape.

On the left is an appetizer that stayed intact, on the right is one that exploded. Either way, these were so good. Be sure to drain the pickles first so you don’t have that extra juice to deal with. These tart, tangy pickles are such a treat.

Serve these with (preferably) homemade ranch dressing. If you are up to it, spike your ranch dressing with Sriracha or hot sauce for extra added zip. Enjoy!