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Vegetarian/Gluten-Free/Nut-Free
Skill Level: Beginner
Yield: Serves 4-6 people as an appetizer
Prep Time: 10-15 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Equipment Needed:
The Recipe:
Ingredients:
1 (8-ounce) block of feta cheese
1 tomato
5-10 cherry tomatoes (see note on this in the recipe)
1 (4-ounce) can of diced green chiles
1 jalapeno pepper
1 teaspoon dried oregano, plus extra to sprinkle on top
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
Crushed red pepper flakes, to taste
Kosher salt or coarse sea salt flakes, such as Maldon
Chopped fresh oregano (for garnish), optional
Honey or hot honey (for garnish), optional
Procedure:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and place a rack in the center of the oven.
Slice a few rounds off of your tomato and set aside. Remove the seeds from the remaining tomato and coarsely chop, then put tomato pieces in the bottom of your baking dish.
Halve 5-10 cherry tomatoes and add to the baking dish. You want a ballpark amount of about 2 cups of tomatoes total in the dish. I just eyeball it and stop slicing cherry tomatoes when it looks like I have enough.
Slice a few rounds off of your jalapeno and set aside with your tomato rounds. Finely chop the remainder of the jalapeno, discarding ribs and seeds if you want less heat, and leaving them in if you want a spicier dish. Add the chopped jalapeno to the dish with the tomatoes.
Add the chopped green chiles, 2 tablespoons olive oil, and 1 teaspoon of dried oregano to the dish, then gently mix everything together.
Nestle the block of feta cheese into the center of the mixture. Add 2-3 tomato rounds and 2-3 jalapeno rounds to the top of the cheese (perfectly fine if they're hanging off the edges), and drizzle with the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Sprinkle the top of the cheese with additional dried oregano and desired amount of crushed red pepper (I do about 1/2-3/4 of a teaspoon).
Cover the dish tightly with aluminum foil and bake for 25 minutes.
Remove dish from the oven, remove the foil, and move an oven rack up so it is about 4-6 inches from the top of the oven. Preheat the broiler.
Broil, uncovered, for 5-6 minutes or until you get a little color on your tomatoes and jalapenos. Garnish with additional chopped fresh oregano and a drizzle of honey or hot honey if desired, and a sprinkle of Kosher salt or flaked sea salt.
To Serve: Serve this delicious, spicy appetizer hot from the oven with dippers such as warm baguette slices or crackers. I also think you could toss some pasta in the dish, mix it all up and have yourself a spicy pasta dinner! Store leftovers in the fridge for 1-2 days.
Adjusting for your diet: If you do not eat dairy, you could try this recipe with a dairy free feta cheese. I haven't tried this, so if you do I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below! I'm especially interested to know if dairy-free feta cheese gets melty when baked like traditional feta.
Tips:
You definitely need to use the block version of feta cheese in this recipe, do not use pre-crumbled. I have been successful finding blocks of feta at all of the grocery stores I frequent in the specialty cheese or deli area of the store.
If you only have cherry tomatoes on hand, you could certainly skip the rounds of tomato on top of the feta (or substitute little rounds of cherry tomatoes), as they are mostly there for aesthetic purposes anyways. Conversely, if you only have regular tomatoes on hand, you could skip the cherry tomatoes and just use about 2 cups of chopped tomato. I like to do a mix because I think in general cherry tomatoes are a little sweeter.
Whenever possible, I buy tomatoes on the vine; I find them to be more flavorful.
I really like using a small serrated knife to cut cherry tomatoes and tomato rounds, it makes it so much easier to get through the skin.
You could substitute a different type of pepper, such as serrano, for the jalapeno. You could leave out the jalapeno all together as well and substitute in some chopped green bell pepper, which is included in the more traditional Greek version of this recipe.
When I remove ribs and seeds from a jalapeno, I am not super obsessive about getting every last one out; this means there will be a little kick but it won't burn my face off.
I find feta cheese to be pretty salty, so did not include salt in the tomato/chili/pepper mixture and just as a garnish; however if you give it a go and find it too bland you could try adding a few big pinches of Kosher salt into the mixture before you nestle the cheese in.
I think this dip tastes best served with warm baguette slices. I like to pop the loaf in the oven for the last 3-4 minutes of cooking time to warm it up, then slice it while my feta is broiling.
The addition of fresh oregano and honey or hot honey at the end is purely all about your tastes and what you like! They could easily be left out. I am a big fan of the sweet/heat combo, so I really like this with a little hit of hot honey. I have a really lovely and large oregano plant, so any chance I get to use fresh oregano, I will take.
There's a lot of room to play here; in the future I will experiment with adding minced garlic into the tomato/pepper mixture.
The Story:
Spring is in the air, and that means all kinds of fun celebrations and get-togethers as we shake off the winter cold and look forward to summer sun! As I've mentioned quite a bit, I love to entertain, especially smaller gatherings of close friends and family that are willing to try my culinary experiments.
I ran across a recipe/post for a Greek appetizer called Bouyiourdi that really interested me; I love feta cheese but had not experimented with baking it (I know, I'm like the only one that hasn't made THE viral feta baked pasta dish...). As a teacher of interior design, I'm also a sucker for a complementary color scheme :) I put my own little spin on this Greek appetizer by subbing in canned green chilis for the more traditional green pepper, and adding in the hot honey drizzle at the end. The end result was delicious; warm bread slathered with salty and melty feta cheese and topped with a scoop of the pepper and tomato mixture was all the right kinds of juicy, spicy, flavorful, and savory.
I can't wait to tweak this one a little more and serve it up for friends as part of a summer spread! It comes together in a snap, and I had it in the oven when my family came over so that we could eat it piping hot as soon as it came out.
Let me know if you try making this spicy baked feta, and what you thought!
Happy tasting!
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