Mom’s Cheese Olive Puffs Recipe

These quintessential 1970s appetizers are cheese olive puffs. Some people call them cheese olive balls, but in our neighborhood, puffs won the day. We grew up eating these guys, and my mom was known for making them and bringing them to almost every neighborhood party they attended, especially during the holidays.

I consider this a family recipe, and it is all the more special because my friend Jennifer shared this recipe at my mom’s funeral. I cannot imagine a more “Jane” funeral than for everyone to leave with a recipe to make.

If you love a good retro appetizer recipe, you will probably also flip for mom’s cream cheese and red sauce. And for ease of browsing, you can find all my appetizer recipes in one place. Thanks so much for being here!

At a Glance

✔️Skill Level: Beginner
✔️Skills: Grating cheese, mixing, wrapping dough around a filling
✔️Type: Individual Appetizer
✔️Number of Ingredients: 6
✔️Prep Time: 10 minutes
✔️Cook Time: 15 minutes
✔️Yield: 40 cheese puffs

Jump Straight to the Recipe

Why Make This Recipe

First and foremost, these little appetizers are delicious.

Salty/briny, crisp on the outside, with a little olive surprise in the middle of each one.

This recipe, or similar ones, has been around for probably about 60 years or so and was at the height of popularity in the 70s and 80s.

They are very easy to make, and one recipe makes 40 cheese puffs.

The recipe also readily doubles or even triples. And these freeze well, so you can have a stash in the freezer to bake at a moment’s notice.

In Memory of My Mom

As you may know, my mom passed away on October 16, 2022.

As part of our celebration of life at her funeral, I asked people to stand and share a story about my mom if they had one.

And boy did they ever. Person after person stood and shared a sweet, funny, or poignant story about my mom, and it was such a lovely time of remembrance.

My dear friend, who has known my mom since I first brought her to my home to visit from college, not only shared the story of how mom emailed her with the recipe for cheese olive puffs, she also found the email (from probably 20 years ago), printed it off, and offered it to everyone in attendance.

So people left mom’s funeral not only with great memories of her, but also with one of her recipes.

Thanks, Jennifer. So perfect.

How to Make Cheese Olive Puffs

As I said at the beginning, these are easy to make, and they have a pretty short list of ingredients.

If you want to get right to it, you can skip straight to the recipe.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Ingredients and Substitutions

• butter: There is plenty of salt in both the cheese and the olives, so you can use unsalted butter. If all you have is salted butter, that’ll work just fine, though.
• cheddar cheese: I like to use extra sharp, but use your favorite
• flour: regular all-purpose flour gives these cheesy guys some structure and “crumb” as opposed to just unrelenting cheesiness
• paprika: I used smoked sweet paprika. Feel free to use plain paprika or spice things up with hot smoked paprika
• black pepper: Not called for in the original recipe, black pepper provides a bit of bite
• green olives: Mom calls for the small, green variety, so that’s what I used, too

Procedure

Cheese olive balls are very easy to make. They are a touch tedious to shape, but you can get your kids to help. Or you can just find your Zen place while doing it yourself.

Here’s what you’ll do:

1. Grate the cheese and drain the olives.
2. Whisk paprika and pepper into the flour.
3. Mix butter and cheese together until well combined and then add the flour mixture.
4. Gather into a ball.

Once you have the dough, it’s a simple matter of shaping the puffs:

1. Make an indentation with your thumb in your piece of dough.
2. Stick an olive in there.
3. Shape the dough up and around the olive, and then pinch it shut.
4. Roll the dough into a neat ball.
5. Repeat 39 times!

Equipment You May Need

Aside from a couple of half-sheet pans, parchment paper, and a cooling rack, you don’t need a ton of specialized equipment.

If you don’t have a stand mixer or a hand mixer, you can always wait until the butter and cheese are very soft and then mix everything together with a wooden spoon.

If you don’t have a scale, you may also want to use a small portion scoop for the dough so your olive balls are all the same size.

If you do a lot of baking, don’t miss my list of essential tools for serious bakers.

Tips for Success

Do not use pre-shredded cheese in this recipe. You want the cheese to blend in with the rest of the ingredients, and the coating on pre-shredded will keep it from doing so.

For nice, round, cheese puffs without too much spread or a “hump” where the olive is, refrigerate the balls of dough while the oven preheats, around 20 minutes.

To minimize greasiness, remove the baked puffs to a paper towel for a minute before transferring to a cooling rack. The paper will absorb a little of the excess fat.

Cheese Puffs Q & A

More Retro Appetizers to Enjoy

Why not put on a whole retro-appetizer spread?

Go all-in with sausage-stuffed mushrooms (this version happens to be gluten-free). Don’t forget the classic that is the port wine cheese ball, and it’s not a party without some smoky bacon guacamole.

And, as far as I’m concerned, you haven’t gone all-in for all the retro goodness if you don’t make some poppy seed party ham biscuits.

Questions?

If you have any questions about this post or recipe, I am happy to help.

Simply leave a comment here and I will get back to you soon. I also invite you to ask question in my Facebook group, Fearless Kitchen Fun.

If your question is more pressing, please feel free to email me. I should be back in touch ASAP, as long as I’m not asleep.

Love These Olive Puffs? Please Rate and Review. Thanks!

I hope you love these cheese olive puffs. It really is a treasured recipe, and even more so now that mom is gone.

Thanks so much for spending some time with me today. Take care, y’all.