Cheesy Pull-Apart Bread
Drenched with garlic butter and stuffed with cheddar, Swiss, and bacon, this decadent and loaded Cheesy Pull-Apart Bread will be the star of your Super Bowl party or any gathering!
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So...have you ever come across a recipe that you just couldn't stop thinking about? And that thinking eventually led to obsessing, until one day you found yourself on an impromptu trip to the grocery store to procure the necessary ingredients for finally bringing said recipe to fruition in your very own kitchen? That, my friends, is how this gooey, melty, Cheesy Pull-Apart Bread was born!
I never encountered a recipe for this particular variation, per se, but the concept of pull-apart bread is one that I first discovered around Super Bowl time last year. I kept seeing these cross-hatched, cheese-oozing loaves on Pinterest, and I knew that we (as in, the bread and I) were meant to be. So it's taken a whole year, but I finally decided that I could go on no longer without baking up my own hunk of pull-apart goodness.
Ingredients
In creating this ultimate football-watching appetizer, I decided to incorporate some of my personal favorite flavors. And let me tell you...this bread indeed includes quite a few of my most favorite things to eat in general.
Let's examine the list:
- bread
- butter
- bacon
- garlic
- cheese
Yup. This bread is heaven-sent...if heaven is a place where carbs, calories, and cholesterol don't exist. 😉
But let's not think about that too much. This butter-soaked, cheese-drenched bread is clearly not something one would eat every day. Of course, if one is a food blogger who bakes it for a post, one may find herself none-too-reluctantly eating it for lunch for several consecutive days. After all, it would be a travesty to let all of those fine ingredients to go to waste.
Yes, it's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it.
Adaptations
Feel free to customize the flavors by substituting your favorite cheeses.
I think Swiss cheese goes really well with bacon, but Swiss alone can be kind of overpowering, so I used an equal amount of cheddar to mellow it out a bit.
But I can think of lots of different cheese combos that would be delicious...I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to throw in some pepper jack next time.
Also, you may want to tweak the amount of fresh garlic to your personal preference. We are big fans of garlic at my house, and 4 teaspoons of fresh minced garlic made for some pretty garlicky bread. If you prefer a more subtle garlic flavor, don't hesitate to cut that in half.
As for the bread itself, I bought a big loaf of rustic Italian bread, but French bread would work beautifully as well. My husband even thought this recipe would be really good with sourdough, and I think he may be onto something.
And there you have it! Make this Cheesy Pull-Apart Bread, and I promise that it will be the most popular appetizer at your Super Bowl party.
Just don't be like me and wait until next year's Super Bowl before you get around to trying it. Add it to your grocery list before Sunday and end football season with a bang! I promise...the salads and the quinoa and the whole wheat this or that will still be waiting for you tomorrow. 😉
More Super Bowl Grub
- Bacon Cheeseburger Monkey Bread
- Ultimate Cheeseburger Sliders
- Cheddar & Sour Cream Queso
- Skillet S'mores Dip
Cheesy Pull-Apart Bread
Ingredients
- 1 large loaf of French, Italian or sourdough bread (I used a round loaf that weighed just under 2 pounds)
- ½ cup (1 stick) butter, melted
- 1 teaspoon garlic salt
- 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 2 to 4 teaspoons fresh minced garlic
- 8 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
- 8 ounces Swiss cheese, shredded
- 8 slices bacon, cooked until crisp and diced into small pieces
- Fresh parsley or chopped green onions for garnish, optional
Instructions
- Place oven rack just below the center position. Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Lay bread on a cutting board. Use a bread knife to make diagonal cuts down through the top of the bread, leaving the crust intact. Repeat across the entire surface of the bread, making the cuts approximately one inch apart. Turn the bread 90 degrees and make a set of perpendicular cuts. When you are finished, the surface of the bread should be cross-hatched into 1-inch squares.
- Stir garlic salt into melted butter. With a basting brush, basting syringe, or spoon, drizzle the melted butter down into the bread between all of the cracks until all butter has been used.
- In a large bowl, beat cream cheese until smooth. Use the side of a knife or the back of a spoon to mash minced garlic into somewhat of a paste. Mix garlic into cream cheese. Stir in cheddar, Swiss, and diced bacon and mix until well blended. Stuff clumps of cheese mixture down into all of the cracks of the bread.
- Lay a long piece of foil on the counter horizontally, and then lay a second long piece of foil on top of it vertically. Center the stuffed loaf of bread on the foil and wrap. Bake for 20 minutes, then open up the top of the foil and bake for another 10 minutes or until cheese is entirely melted. Watch carefully once foil is open to ensure that the top of the bread is not browning too much. Serve hot.
Notes
- If you use a smaller loaf of bread, you will obviously need to cut back on the amount of cheese/other ingredients that you use.
- How much fresh garlic you use should be dictated by how much you like it! I used 4 teaspoons and the bread was pretty garlicky, but it was perfect for my family because we are all big fans of garlic.
- I found that the cream cheese acts as a binder for the cheese and bacon and makes it easier to stuff everything into the grooves of the bread and have it actually stay in the right place.
MK
Absolutely delicious!
Have you or anyone made this ahead and baked just before serving? Would it work or does the bread get soggy from the melted butter? Any ideas/ suggestions, I want to take it for a potluck lunch tomorrow at work and I would live to gave it all together and just bake it there just before lunch.
Hi Teri! I haven't tried making this recipe ahead of time, but if you scroll up three comments above yours, a reader named Kaja did make this recipe ahead of time. He relayed that it worked okay but wasn't ideal and he probably wouldn't try making it ahead of time again. Hope you had better luck if you decided to make it ahead of time for your potluck. 🙂 Have a great weekend!
I'm making this for a NYE party tonight, but forgot to buy cream cheese!!! Substituting half of butter with mayo and ranch dressing.... Hoping its a hit! Thanks for the delicious ideas!!
I always forget something at the grocery store, Debbie! I hope this turned out even without the cream cheese, and I hope you had a very Happy New Year!
Works well with sourdough bread as it usually has holes in it to soak up all that gooey stuff.
From down under.
I bet sourdough turns out great in this recipe, Joseph...thanks for sharing! Hope you're having happy holidays down under! 🙂
Hello!
This looks amaaaazing!
I was wondering if there is a way to make it ahead of time and freeze it? Any suggestions or ideas if this would be possible? I'm talking less than a week in advance.
Keep up the great recipes and stories 🙂
Hi Kaja! Hmmm...I wish I had the answer to that, but I haven't tried making this recipe ahead of time and freezing it. I'm just afraid it might turn soggy during the thawing process, but I'm not positive??? If you're only talking about a few days ahead of time, I think I'd recommend wrapping it tightly and refrigerating it instead of freezing it, and then letting it come to room temperature before baking. Good luck, and please come back and let us know how things turn out if you try making this ahead of time! 🙂
Thanks so much for the tip! I did make it ahead of time and kept it wrapped in the fridge. It worked out alright but definitely had to bake it much longer. In the end you were right about your guess on the sogginess, the bread was wet and the cream cheese never really melted.
Overall, I would suggest not making it ahead of time, the taste was still amazing but the "gooeyness" was lost. Oh well!
Darn, Kaja...I'm sorry to hear that making this ahead didn't turn out as you had hoped. I really appreciate you coming back to let us know, though, so that others with the same question have an answer! 🙂 Happy New Year!
YUM! This has been added to my appetizer list for Thanksgiving.
You can't go wrong with bread, bacon, and cheese...I hope it's a hit, Cat! 😉 Have a great week!