Growing up in “the South”, however suburban my experience was, there was always a constant in my house like many others across the southeast: grits for breakfast. My mom used to load up a giant bowl of grits with cheddar, butter, and tons of bacon for one of our weekend meals and we’d happily stuff ourselves with the cheesy goodness. You all know how much I love Tillamook, so I thought to celebrate Tillamook OFFICIALLY launching in the South, I’d whip up a big bowl of the cheesiest grits recipe with tons of Tillamook Cheddar!
If you’re new around here and not familiar with Tillamook, they are a farmer-owned dairy co-op located in Portland Oregon known for making some of the finest cheeses, ice creams, and other dairy goods. The tagline for their ice cream is seriously creamy and I couldn’t agree more, it’s become some of our favorite ice cream in our household. Cheddar wise, they have hands down THE BEST cheddar we’ve ever eaten. From slices to shreds and blocks of cheddar, you will never find another kind of cheddar in our fridge.
You’re probably wondering what makes Tillamook Cheddar so much better than the other stuff and it’s due to the high-fat content in the cheese that makes it the meltiest cheese on the market, perfect for anything that needs to have cheddar incorporated into it and perfect to celebrate as we did at the #MeltyFest this past week!
If you follow me on Instagram, you would have seen all of the fun we had at #MeltyFest hosted at Sweet Auburn BBQ in Atlanta. Over 200 people got together to attend a celebration of Pimento Cheese with some amazing dishes created by a few of Atlanta’s finest chefs who created awesome dishes like the pimento cheese cannoli from Southern Belle, pimento cheese deviled eggs from Buttermilk Kitchen, a pimento cheese slider from King & Duke, a pimento cheese-tart from Lazy Betty, and the world-famous pimento cheese wontons from Sweet Auburn Market!
#MeltyFest was so delicious and so much fun! If you missed it but want to have your own melty fest at home, you can recreate this recipe below and fill up on Tillamook cheddar by finding it near you!
Happy melting!
- 4 cups Whole Milk
- 4 tbsp unsalted butter
- 1 cup grits
- 2 cups shredded Tillamook Cheddar
- salt and pepper to taste
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Bring milk and butter to a boil in saucepan.
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Turn heat to low to simmer and whisk in grits.
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Cook over low heat for 25 minutes, stirring often.
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Once grits are cooked, remove from heat and fold in cheddar cheese, salt and pepper.
Pin this image to recreate in the future!
