Since I first made these gems in the late 1970’s, folks have asked why I didn’t sell them. That’s not my focus, but I figured someone else would… someday. That day is now.
“Fresh Gourmet” is the name under which they are manufactured. I’ve now seen them in supermarkets in both the North and South. They offer two varieties… Parmesan and Asiago.
I bought a bag of each. (Beware… the price approaches $5 for a small bag.)
The contents match my simple one-ingredient approach. Cheese. Just cheese. 100% real, gluten-free, dairy-rich cheese. Nothing else. Nada. Bupkiss.
While the supermarket variety is a small 1” size disk, I advocate making them in a variety of sizes, to suit your needs. Small ones to replace crackers. Large disks to top a salad. I also do some other “shape” treatments for visual interest when placing my Cheese Crisps out with cocktails and other tapas items. You can “crinkle” each disk a bit or roll them into tubes, but you must do this while they are still fresh and hot from the oven, since they cool very quickly to a nice crispy texture.
Before I give you the recipe again, let me answer the questions I have already gotten from personal friends. No, I have no plans to buy them again. They are just too super simple to make. I could imagine myself buying a bag if I was traveling and wanted a cheesy snack for the road. If you want a zero carb snack with all the crunch of a cracker, these babies deliver!
Plus, I make them in lots of flavor varieties, beyond Parmesan and Asiago. Favorites include Pepper Jack and Muenster, by the way. The original idea came from picking at cheese that had melted off my nachos and gotten crispy on the foil-covered baking pan. Oh, yeah!
So, here’s the recipe for you.
Super Simple Cheese Crisps
Sandwich-size deli square slices of cheese, such as Muenster, cut in 4 squares
Space 4 pieces of cheese in a Pyrex pie dish or 8” square baking dish. Microwave on high 1 minute (or up to 90 seconds depending on your microwave. (It helps to start with a warm plate, or you may need to flip the first batch of cheese over and cook 15-30 sec more.) Cool on paper towels. Make as many as you like! Store in airtight containers at room temperature or they will lose their crispness.
KISS Notes: A popular restaurant at a Sheraton hotel started serving my Parmesan version of these beauties atop their Caesar salads in 1976. While such crisps pop up frequently in restaurants now, they were quite the novelty in the 1970’s and even ‘80’s. I refined them in 1980 to this microwaved technique & with more varieties to serve as AWESOME carb-free crackers for friends trying the Atkins Diet long before carb-free items appeared in stores. I also served them as a super snack with wine… I still do.
This recipe appears in a couple of my cookbooks, including Volume 1 of “Fifty Years of Fabulous Family Favorites” along with the recipe for my original baked version. The cookbook “Dockside Dining – Round One” also gives some clever tips on turning these into Cheese Crisp Canapes. Enjoy on this New Year’s Day… with love and laughter.
