The Best Sauce To Pour Over Cream Cheese | Red Sauce

Watch my best cream cheese appetizer recipe web story here.

Why You Need to Make This Recipe

Honestly, friends, this truly is the most delicious cream cheese appetizer out there.

Make this recipe because it’s easy to make, it relies almost entirely on pantry and refrigerator staple ingredients, and it is the tangiest and most mouthwatering sauce to pour over a block of cream cheese, period.

This is a recipe that some mom in our neighborhood must’ve gotten from a magazine in the 1970s, and for decades, it isn’t a party in that neighborhood unless there’s red sauce! (But mom’s cheese olive puffs come in a close second.)

It is ketchup based.

It’s sweet and sour and one of the tangiest sauces ever.

It’s unapologetically neon red, just a tiny bit spicy and so very moreish that there is rarely any left once I get started.

In fact, once you make this, I dare you to only eat one cracker spread with it and say “I’m done.” I dare you.

How to Make This Cream Cheese Appetizer Sauce

Ingredients and Substitutions

As I said, it’s made up of staples. And while they sound pretty unlikely, trust me.

This sauce is delicious.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Ketchup: I grew up with Heinz, and it’s still my favorite, so that’s what I recommend. But any tomato ketchup will work here
• Honey: A mild honey works best. The ketchup and honey are the two main ingredients, and that combo brings the sweet and tangy. The rest of the ingredients bring the magic!
• A1 Steak Sauce: There is something about A1 that gets me right in the salivary glands. It’s a little sweet, spicy, and tangy all by itself. I keep a bottle on hand specifically to make red sauce
• chopped onion: Sweet or yellow onion will work. You need about 1/2 cup. I generally don’t measure, so it kind of depends on how much you like onion. And it does add little “chunks” to the sauce, so if you like smooth sauces, consider pureeing it after you make it
• minced garlic: some fermented garlic honey would be great here, but any garlic will do, even pre-minced. I often use freeze-dried, and more than the recipe strictly calls for
• salt: A generous, heavy pinch. Or measure out 3/8 teaspoon kosher salt. Use a bit less if you’re using fine table salt
• black pepper: Freshly ground is my preference. The recipe calls for 1/4 teaspoon, but if you love that black peppery bite, use more.
• vinegar: I like apple cider vinegar here, but any vinegar will do. Stay away from balsamic–it’s too sweet, I think. Go with red wine vinegar or white vinegar if you don’t have ACV
• yellow mustard: It’s weird, but plain yellow mustard is best in this recipe. Standard hot dog mustard. I’ve made it with Dijon before, but even though there’s only 1 1/2 teaspoons of mustard in the recipe, I could tell the difference and prefer plain yellow mustard
• lemon juice: I always use freshly squeeze lemon juice, but you could use bottled in a pinch and nothing bad would happen.

Procedure

Right?

I know it sounds like a crazy list of ingredients.

All it takes is simmering all these ingredients together for 10 minutes to make the best sweet and sour, hard to stop eating, most delicious sauce ever to be poured over a (very lucky) block of cream cheese.

I wish I could explain to you how much I love this stuff. I know it sounds kind of odd what with the ketchup and A-1 and mustard and all, but man is it good!

How To Serve Cream Cheese and Red Sauce

For a party, you’re supposed to pour red sauce on a block of cream cheese so it cascades down the sides.

The best crackers to eat with it are ones that have a fairly neutral flavor like Ritz or Captains wafers or any sort of butter cracker.

I only had Triscuits, and they work fine to get it to your mouth, but the crunch and assertive wheatiness of them tend to fight with the sauce.

Buy some unassuming crackers to play Barbara Hershey to the red sauce’s Bette Midler, and get yourself to the kitchen to whip up a vat.

If you want to go with homemade crackers, you might like my spent grain crackers. They have good flavor on their own, but the texture and flavor won’t fight with the tang of the sauce.

Is There a Less Messy Way of Serving Red Sauce?

If you’re leery of serving a “communal appetizer” in the times of Covid, do what reader John did:

With company this might get a bit messy. I bought pastry shells in the store, baked according to pkg, put softened cream cheese in cup and dolloped each with red sauce. Works well at busy party and they go quickly.

Reader John

This is such a great idea that I had to share it with y’all.

Q & A

More Tasty Stuff to Spread on or Pour Over Cream Cheese

Cream cheese makes the perfect canvas for almost anything you’d like to put on top of it, really.

It works with sweet ingredients like fresh fruit or mixed berry jam or cranberry orange jam.

It works well with savory ingredients like slices of cured meats, bacon jam, tomato jam, and plum chutney.

I can even eat cream cheese just plain on crackers, but with so many options, including the ridiculously addictive red sauce, why would I?!

Questions?

If you have questions about this post or recipe, don’t hesitate to get in touch. You can leave a comment on the post and I will get back to you within about 24 hours.

If your question is more urgent, please shoot me an email, and I will respond within 4 hours, unless I’m asleep.

What’s your favorite retro holiday appetizer that you couldn’t get enough of as a kid (or now)?

Thanks for reading, friends, and I hope cream cheese and red sauce finds its way onto your holiday appetizer list this year.

Take care, and have a lovely day.