MEDITERRANEAN BAKED FETA | A Seriously Good Appetizer Recipe!

This Mediterranean-baked feta is officially my signature appetizer for dinner parties and entertaining. Besides being super easy to make, each scoop is the perfect bite of warm and soft feta cheese with an herb-infused green olive and sun-dried tomato topping.

If you follow trends on social media, you know that baked cheese is all the rage – and I’m here for it! My baked brie is popular during the holidays, but this baked feta is great year-round. And while baked feta pasta might be popular on social media, this Mediterranean-baked feta is my personal favorite go-to recipe. It’s robust in flavor and requires very little effort – and who doesn’t love that? This simple dish represents my favorite style of cooking and it’s something you’ll find across all of my Mediterranean recipes.

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► TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Intro
00:31 The type of olives I recommend.
01:13 Halve the olives and roughly chop the sun-dried tomatoes.
02:42 Add the garlic, olive oil, and dried herbs.
03:20 The baking dish I recommend.
03:34 Place the feta in the baking dish, add the topping, and bake in the oven.
04:21 Garnish with parsley before serving.
04:53 Taste test and tips.

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– This Mediterranean baked feta is officially my signature appetizer for dinner parties and when I have friends over. Not only is it super easy to make, which is important when I have friends sitting right here at my island, but each scoop is also the perfect bite of warm and soft feta with an herb-infused brainy topping of green olives and sun-dried tomatoes. It is so delicious and happily tides my friends over until the main course arrives, and I think you guys are gonna love it too, so let me show you how to make it. To get started, you’ll need one cup of pitted drained olives. My favorite olives are these green Castelvetrano olives that have a mild, buttery, and even creamy, sweet flavor. The green color is a beautiful contrast to the red sun-dried tomatoes in this dish, though you could always use Kalamata olives as well, or a little bit of both. It’s really up to you. Now, fun fact, I actually never liked plain olives up until about a year ago, and now I’m obsessed with them all thanks to these Castelvetrano olives. I was definitely that kid who picked black olives off of any dish. So if you are like old me, just know that these green olives are in a category all their own. Also, as I was filming this recipe and fishing out all of these olives from the jar, I kept thinking to myself, I really need to get one of those pickle or olive jars that you can flip to strain. So guess what I just bought on Amazon? I also learned the first time I made this recipe that whole olives, which may look pretty in a final dish, are just too big when it comes to spreading and nibbling. So I recommend having them. You can slice them in half with a knife, but for a more rustic look, you can also just tear them in half with your fingers. And I now prefer the look of the latter. For the sun-dried tomatoes, grab yourself a jar of ones that look fairly vibrant. While sun-dried tomatoes are of course more subdued in color than fresh tomatoes, I always steer clear of jars where they look nearly brown, because those just won’t look as appetizing in the final presentation. You’ll need about a half a cup of sun-dried tomatoes, which is about six or seven tomatoes. And you don’t really have to measure them out, you can just eyeball the amount and then roughly chop those up into bite-sized pieces. If you’re also wondering what to make with the leftover sun-dried tomatoes in the jar, I highly recommend trying my creamy Tuscan chicken recipe. It’s a one pan dish of juicy chicken breasts, seasoned with Italian spices, seared until golden, then simmered in a luxurious cream sauce with sun-dried tomatoes, onion, and plenty of spinach. It’s definitely a Downshifter favorite, and I’m pretty sure many of you have already made it, but consider this your reminder to make it again. Add the chopped sun-dried tomatoes to your bowl of halved green olives, and then mince three garlic cloves on top. Measure out a third cup of extra virgin olive oil, and then add the dried herbs, which includes half a teaspoon of dried oregano, half a teaspoon of dried thyme, half a teaspoon of dried basil, and for a little kick, add a pinch of red pepper flakes. To finish it off, add a few grinds of sea salt. And remember, you don’t need a lot as there’s already a lot of briny, salty flavor. And then add a few grinds of black pepper. Give that a stir to make sure that the dried herbs are mixed throughout and everything is well coated in the olive oil. Now, in terms of a baking dish, I have this two piece stove set, and I’m using the smaller one for today’s recipe. And I’ll link these below. But both dishes are used often in my kitchen, so it is a set worth investing in. Alternatively, you could use an eight-inch square baking dish or something else around that size. Place eight ounces of a good quality block feta into the baking dish, and then pour your mixed topping all over it. Use your spoon to gently push most of the olives and sun-dried tomatoes to the side so that the feta can get a little color to it while it’s in the oven. And then pop this into a preheated 350 degree Fahrenheit oven. Bake the feta for 20 to 25 minutes until it’s softened. And if you’d like to add a little color to the top, you can turn on your top broiler for just a minute or two. But do be careful if you do this as it can quickly singe any olives and sun-dried tomatoes you have on top, speaking from personal recipe testing experience. You are going to love this baked feta that’s soft and spreadable and infused with the best herb-y, savory, and briny topping. And then right before serving, you can add a sprinkle of freshly chopped parsley, which I think always makes the difference in terms of flavor and presentation, especially when it comes to Mediterranean recipes. Now, in terms of serving, you can choose your favorite crackers or serve it up with sliced cucumber or even bell pepper. This is one appetizer that’s highly addictive and will get fully devoured probably within 20 minutes of taking it out of the oven. And I am now ready to dig in myself. That is so amazing. And while you can serve it with a variety of crostinis and crackers, gluten-free, not gluten-free, whatever floats your boat, I also love to serve it with just some simple cucumber slices or a refreshing and crisp bite in the summer as well. And I have to say that every single person that I have served this to thus far at a dinner party or just a gathering at my house has asked for the recipe. So don’t just take my word for it that it’s amazing, I guess you can take all of their endorsements as well. Now, what I do do to save time when I’m entertaining, because usually I’m juggling multiple things at the same time, I will prep the entire topping before anyone gets here. So I will have the olives, I will roughly chop the sun-dried tomatoes, mix it with the herbs and oil. I will then set that back in the fridge. And then when everyone gets here, I can simply put the cheese in the dish, add the topping, pop it in the oven, and about 25 minutes later, there’s this nice, warm, soft aromatic dish that comes out of the oven, and it just goes over so well. If you wanna take it a step further, you can serve this as part of just a really big mezze platter. You could serve it up with things like baba ghanoush and hummus and tzatziki, and a variety of vegetable sticks and crackers. You could even put some dried fruit and some fresh fruit. You could do an entire island or small table full of nibbles, and that will keep everyone happy as well. You might not even need a main course after that. And I’m gonna give a quick plug for some of my cocktail recipes as well, because if you are entertaining, especially in the summertime, a few drinks and cocktails that I love to serve this way when my friends are over, you can choose from an Aperol spritz, a Limoncello spritz, or my red Sangria recipe, those always go over really well. I hope you guys enjoy today’s video for this Mediterranean baked feta appetizer. If you did, make sure to give it a thumbs up. And if there are other appetizer recipes you would like to see a video for, make sure to leave that in the comments below. And with that, I’m going to finish polishing off probably half of this today. And I will see you in the next video. (upbeat music)