Baked feta is the pimped up, flavour-bomb, OMG can I have some more dish that you didn’t know you needed in your life.
Look, I’m a huge fan of feta, crumbled onto a salad, tucked into a veggie burger – it’s an oft under-championed workhorse of the cheese world, steadily jazzing up our mealtimes like Mr Motivator did our early mornings in the nineties.
The first and most obvious question that people ask when confronted with the concept of baked feta is “Can you cook feta cheese”? Erm. Yes. The Greeks (as in, you know the nation who invented feta cheese) have been baking feta since time immemorial – nuff said.
The point I’m making is: this dish is going to make you reassess everything you thought you knew about feta. The gentle heat of the chilli, the fragrant thyme and cumin brought together in the perfect marriage with the tangy feta saltiness we know so well.
Add to that the fact that it’s so easy to cook and you have a real mealtime winner in the making.
Not sure what to serve it with? If you’re having the baked feta as a main, I’d suggest a pimped up salad and grain combo like my hearty pomegranate and smoked freekeh salad. Or you can have it as a starter and simply serve it with some fresh bread.
Practical Tips for Making Baked Feta Cheese
Baked feta is such a simple recipe – here are a few pointers to help you get it right.
Get Some Good Quality Feta
I say this a lot on the blog, but good quality cooking is really about using the best quality that you can afford / get your hands on.
The feta is the star of the show here, so it really makes sense to buy some proper feta here – in other words, stay away from the “salad cheese”.
Wrap it in Foil
You can bake feta in a normal baking dish but wrapping it in a foil parcel alongside the other ingredients really helps the flavours to penetrate the cheese as it’s cooking. It also results in a tonne of oozy feta, herb and oil juices for you to mop up with bread and devour in a fit of greed afterwards. #noshame.
Baked Feta Cheese with Chilli and Thyme Recipe
This baked feta recipe pairs the tangy saltiness of feta cheese with aromatic herbs and warming chilli for a quick and easy meal.
Ingredients
- 1 block of feta
- 1 tbsp dried chilli flakes
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 5 sprigs thyme
- 1 tbsp olive oil
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 170℃.
- Line a baking dish with foil, leaving enough excess foil to fold upwards and twist into a parcel for cooking.
- Place the feta into the foil, sprinkle the chilli, cumin and thyme over it before drizzling with the olive oil.
- Wrap the foil into a parcel around the feta and place the dish into the oven.
- Cook for 20 minutes, remove from the oven and serve.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
2Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 112Total Fat: 11gSaturated Fat: 3gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 7gCholesterol: 14mgSodium: 163mgCarbohydrates: 2gFiber: 0gSugar: 1gProtein: 3g
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