Delicious Goat Cheese Pops Are Just A Roll Away

Amongst the hustle and bustle that comes with entertaining guests and hosting a party is planning and preparing the appetizers. What can you make that's finger-friendly, easy to bring together, and, most importantly, crowd-pleasingly delicious? A good place to start is with your cheese. Goat cheese, specifically fresh chevre, is known for its tangy but mild flavor and smooth creaminess — typically used for spreading on crackers or crumbling on top of a fresh salad or pasta dish. It even makes a great substitution for cream cheese when making dips. But it's goat cheese's flexibility and versatility that make it the perfect feature in an appetizer. With just a few additions, you can make a goat cheese mixture that can take on a multitude of flavors.

So what happens when you take goat cheese and form it into the shape of a delightful dessert cake pop? Cheese appetizer magic. Rolling these goat cheese pops in everyone's favorite salty, indulgent topping, bacon, is the show-stopping finish.

Goat cheese is not the only key ingredient here. By combining goat cheese and cream cheese, you'll create a cheese mixture that's even easier to form and shape into the perfect balls for cheese pops. Make sure to include chopped fresh herbs into the cheese mix for flavor, then press the mixture with your hands into small, half-inch balls, and push a popsicle stick (or pretzel) into each one. While these goat cheese pops chill in the freezer for about 20 minutes, or in your fridge for a couple of hours, you can fry up some bacon. Crumble that cooked crispy bacon with some more herbs and nuts in a food processor and your goat cheese pops are ready to roll!

Although the goat cheese pops should be chilled, make sure they don't fully freeze over. Then, all you have left to do is roll the chilled pops into the bacon mix and you are ready to serve. As an extra time saver, feel free to make the goat cheese mixture a few days in advance and keep it stored in the fridge for easy final touches once you're ready to serve.

Once you have the basic template of your delightful goat and cream cheese mixture, you can roll the pops in a variety of ingredients to create a vast selection of goat cheese pop flavors. Pretend like you're creating the perfect bite with selections from your favorite charcuterie board and combine them into your next pop.

Try adding some honey to your goat and cream cheese mixture to amp up the sweetness. And while bacon is always a crowd-pleasing favorite, feel free to swap it out for other crunchy toppings. To keep things vegetarian-friendly and fruit-forward, go for a sweet combo of chopped cherries with crushed pecans. Or if you're looking for a festive holiday party appetizer option, roll the pops in chopped cranberries and pistachios to make them even sweeter. Serve the salty, tangy bacon goat cheese pops alongside one of these sweeter combinations and give your guests the best of both goat cheese worlds.