Ham and Pimento Cheese Sandwich

These Ham & Pimento Cheese Sandwiches are simple, but bursting with flavor. We take our favorite biscuit recipe that’s light, flaky, and oh-so delicious and smother the inside with warm pimento cheese and ham. The perfect bridal shower, lunch or side to soup or salad.

Ham and Pimento Cheese Sandwiches

I think I was secretly born in the south, because if I had my choice, I could live off a diet of crispy fried chicken, sweet cornbread, shrimp and grits and mile-high buttermilk biscuits for an eternity, but really, who couldn’t??

I love southern food for its indulgent qualities, yes, but I also love it just as much for its simplicity. In a world where we put bacon on doughnuts and cheeseburger sliders on bloody marys, sometimes it’s nice to stick to the basics – classics done right with minimal alterations. As a food blogger, I’m obviously guilty of glorifying the trend of more is more, but even I know when to hold back, thus is the case with today’s Ham and Pimento Cheese Sandwich.

Classic pimento cheese – my way – is smothered on homemade buttermilk biscuits, topped with smoked ham and served either room temperature or slightly warm from the oven. Because of their miniature size, they’re perfect for a party, and have built-in portion control that allows even a person who’s watching their weight to join in on the action.

While our version isn’t spicy, add a few shakes of hot sauce or cayenne pepper to give it a little bit of heat. 

Ingredients in Ham and Pimento Cheese Sandwiches

Biscuits. Our Pimento Cheese Sandwich is actually an older recipe we are updating, so even though we have plenty of our own biscuits recipes in the archives, we went with this biscuit recipe ages ago. It’s a great basic biscuit recipe that’s flaky, light and oh-so delicious. If you have your own biscuit recipe you love, you can use that as well. 

You’ll need: 

• All purpose flour 
• Baking powder
• Salt
• Butter
• Buttermilk 
• Honey

Cheddar cheese. Make sure to get a really good quality extra-sharp cheddar cheese. The sharper, the better! 

Cream cheese. To get that creamy texture we all love so much about pimento cheese, we use softened cream cheese. I find that low-fat (NOT fat free) cream cheese tastes really similar to the full-fat version so that’s what we use. 

Seasoning. I use pretty standard spices here – onion powder and garlic powder. As we mentioned before, if you want to up the spice level, add in a dash or two of hot sauce or cayenne pepper. 

Dijon mustard. This adds a really nice tang to the pimento cheese sandwich, plus a teeny bit of spice. 

Ham. While these pimento cheese sandwiches are really delicious with simply pimento cheese and the biscuit, I like to layer in a slice of good quality ham. We like Virginia ham or Black Forest. 

Let’s make Pimento Cheese Sandwiches!

Make the biscuits. One trick both Sally and I do for rolling out biscuits, is overlapping the dough over itself several times to create really nice tall layers. Don’t skip this step! 

Make the pimento cheese. Most versions just have you mix the ingredients for the pimento cheese with a hand mixer or in a stand mixer, but I wanted it to be more of a spread, so I whipped everything up in the food processor to blend it a little bit better. To keep the pimentos somewhat in tact, I processed the cheese, cream cheese, mustard, and spices together first, then added in the pimentos at the last minute.

Season to taste with salt, pepper, and hot sauce if you want. 

Assemble!  After the biscuits cool, split them in half and spread the pimento cheese on the bottom of each biscuit. Top with a piece of ham and then spread more pimento cheese on the top piece of the biscuit. 

Because I was serving these at a baby shower, I left them at room temperature, but I also love to heat them up in the oven just before serving so the cheese gets all melty. They are outrageously delicious this way. 

Can I make these in advance? 

Yes! You can make the pimento cheese up to three days in advance. Just be sure when you go to assemble, you set it out to come to room temperature. 

The biscuits can also be made up to a day in advance. I like to pop them in the oven just before serving to crisp them up a bit. 

Substitutions and Tips and Tricks for Recipe Success

• If you don’t want to make your own biscuits, you can buy store-bought. Just keep in mind, frozen or canned biscuits are bigger, so you’ll get less. 
• Add in hot sauce or cayenne pepper for extra heat. 
• Leave out the ham for a simple pimento cheese sandwich. 
• Don’t over mix the dough! 
• Don’t over process the pimento cheese. You want it to be a spread, but have texture. 

More of our favorite sandwiches! 

• Our Avocado Egg Salad is our favorite egg salad recipe + the best avocado toast. Such a fun combo. 
• These Cucumber Sandwiches are a great summer lunch option. Perfect for entertaining as well! 
• We are in love with these classic French sandwiches – the Jambon Beurre. Ham + herbed butter + arugula on a crusty baguette.