Pear, Pistachio and Truffle Honey Goat Cheese Ball

Thank you to RW Garcia for sponsoring the post for this Pear, Pistachio and Truffle Honey Goat Cheese Ball! All opinions are my own.

The tree is purchased. The stockings are hung. Christmas music is perpetually blasting through our house. And I’m ready to crank out as many holiday-inspired small bites as I can.

Normally when I throw parties, I like to serve a full meal, but when it comes to the holidays I’m really in to eating a little bit of everything, and my menus reflects that. Parties usually consist of a few dips, some of our family favorite sausage rolls, a fancy meatball of sorts, a wild card finger food and always always cheese and crackers in some way, shape or form.

Sometimes I’ll throw together a giant cheese board with an array of cheeses, crackers, meats and accouterments, and usually I’ll stick to nutty cheddar of some sort, a creamy blue cheese and an aged gouda or something similar. However, since the holidays require everything to be extra special, I love to go sort of old school and throw together a fancy cheese ball.

Except this isn’t any ordinary cheese ball, and we aren’t serving it with any ordinary crackers.

This is a Pear, Pistachio and Truffle Honey Goat Cheese Ball and we’re serving it with RW Garcia’s Sweet Beet Crackers, which go oh-so harmoniously together.

I talked about RW’s crackers a while back, and since then, we’ve been eating them up a storm. Teddy, who can barely talk requests the beet crackers on a daily basis, so we know that they’re delicious on their own, but paired with this cheese ball?? Heaven!

We love that all of the ingredients are easily distinguishable, that the crackers are non-GMO and gluten free, but obviously what we love most about them, is they’re super tasty. They come in four different flavors – Kale, Sweet Potato, Harvest, and of course Beet – which are all delicious, but as aforementioned, right now, we’re heavily in to the beet.

To me, there is no better compliment to a beet than goat cheese. You see the flavor pairing in countless salads and appetizers, so I knew it would be the perfect flavor base to go off of when developing the recipe for this cheese ball.

Since goat cheese can be a little strong for certain taste buds, if you want, instead of using 100% goat cheese, you can go with an even ratio of goat cheese to cream cheese as the base, but if LOVE goat cheese, like I do, feel free to use it exclusively.

Because I literally can’t get enough of brown butter this time of year (see here, here and here), the next element entails diced bartlet pears cooked in a pool of nutty brown butter. If you know anything about pears and brown butter, then you know, that the two ingredients together, couldn’t be more addictive.

Once those are cooked and cooled slightly, they get added into a bowl with the softened goat cheese, along with toasted, chopped pistachios, a little bit of salt and a good amount of truffle honey.

These days, I find that truffle honey is pretty easy to find, but if you have trouble finding it, any standard honey will also work. Just keep in mind, that the underlying flavor the truffle honey adds, really takes this cheese ball over the top, which I love.

After all the ingredients are mixed together, it’s gently formed into a ball and served with Beet Crackers.

Now, go add this to your holiday menus – pronto!

Pear, Pistachio and Truffle Honey Goat Cheese Ball

Prep: 15 minutes minutes

Cook: 15 minutes minutes

0 minutes minutes

Total: 30 minutes minutes

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This Pear, Pistachio and Truffle Honey Goat Cheese Ball is the perfect appetizer for your holiday menu. It's easy to throw together, uses minimal ingredients and EVERYONE loves it! 

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10 1-oz servings

Ingredients

• ▢ 1 tbsp unsalted butter
• ▢ 1 cup diced pear
• ▢ 1/3 cup shelled pistachios, finely chopped
• ▢ 3 tbsp truffle honey
• ▢ 10 oz goat cheese, room temperature
• ▢ Salt to taste
• ▢ RW Garcia Beet Crackers

Equipment

• Mixing bowls

Instructions

• Add butter to a small skillet. Turn the heat on medium high and once the butter begins to brown, start to swirl the pan. When the butter is a deep brown and smells nutty. Reduce heat to medium and add pears. Sauté pears in brown butter until softened, about 3 minutes. Cool.
• Add goat cheese to a medium bowl. Add in cooked pears, pistachios and truffle honey. Mix together until everything is evenly combined. Season to taste with salt and pepper. 
• Add mixture to serving dish or platter, gently form into a ball. Serve with RW Garcia Sweet Beet Crackers. 
  

Nutrition Information

Serving: 11-oz serving, Calories: 136kcal (7%), Carbohydrates: 9g (3%), Protein: 6g (12%), Fat: 9g (14%), Saturated Fat: 5g (31%), Cholesterol: 16mg (5%), Sodium: 105mg (5%), Potassium: 68mg (2%), Fiber: 1g (4%), Sugar: 7g (8%), Vitamin A: 345IU (7%), Vitamin C: 1mg (1%), Calcium: 45mg (5%), Iron: 1mg (6%)

© Author: Nicole