Skip to main content
Snack

Cheese Balls

Fried balls made from soft American cheese, egg, salt, cayenne, and stale bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Cheese Balls

Why it works: Cheese and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,130 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the cheese with the beaten egg, salt, and cayenne.

  2. Add enough stale bread crumbs to form a stiff paste.

  3. Shape the mixture into balls the size of English walnuts.

  4. Dip each ball in beaten egg, then roll in dry bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in hot oil until golden brown.

  2. Serve hot with lettuce or cress salad.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Cheese + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Soft american cheese
Melts into the filling and gives the balls their rich, creamy body.
Beaten egg
Binds the mixture and, with crumbs, forms a coating that sets and browns when fried.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the cheese and egg to form a stiff paste that holds its shape.

The step that matters

Fry in hot oil until golden brown. If the oil is not hot enough, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy before it browns, while the cheese inside may leak out. Hot oil sets and browns the crumb crust quickly so the filling stays enclosed.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More cheese balls recipes

with Tomato Sauce 4Cottage 3Fried 3 See all 102 →

You might also like

FrittersFritters56 recipesCrisp CrackersCrisp Crackers7 recipes