Asiago-rosemary crisps, and easy microwave cheese crisps

I've seen lots of low-carb cracker recipes, most of which involve a lengthy process of mixing a dough, rolling it out, cutting out individual crackers, and so forth. These are significantly easier: just bake grated cheese with seasonings until crisp. I baked grated Asiago and cracked rosemary in silicone mini-muffin trays so that they came out perfectly round. If you use mini-muffin trays, they MUST be silicone, otherwise they will stick. If you do not have one, you can mound up the cheese on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. While cheese is somewhat calorically-dense, each crisp has only about a teaspoon of cheese. Thus, a small amount of cheese is stretched a long way.

ASIAGO-ROSEMARY CRISPS
Makes 24 crackers

INGREDIENTS

• 2 oz (weight) Asiago or other hard cheese such as Parmesan (about 1/2 cup grated)
• 1/4 tsp dried rosemary (I used Penzeys cracked rosemary) or a teaspoon of minced fresh rosemary

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 F
2. If the Asiago is in a solid block, grate it on the small side of a box grater. Alternately, you can shred the cheese, freeze it on a plate for an hour, and then pulse it in a food processor until powdery.
3. Toss the cheese with the rosemary. Place a teaspoon (approximately) of the mixture in a mini-muffin cup. Repeat with all 24 cups.
4. Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden but not brown. Rotate the pan halfway through.
5. Let the crisps cool in the muffin tins, then peel them out. Store in the refrigerator. They will keep for about a week.

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One drawback is that using good-quality hard cheese doesn't get quite as crispy as I'd like. I've actually gotten the best results with supermarket semi-soft/semi-hard cheeses such as Monterey Jack or cheddar. You can easily make those in the microwave as follows.

Here, I cut up a 50-calorie low-fat string cheese into 12 pieces (I've also cut it into 16 pieces before and I actually preferred that). Put each piece in the cup of a mini muffin pan. You can sprinkle them with any kind of seasoning you'd like, or leave them plain.

Next, microwave for 30 seconds. Rotate the tray and nuke for another 15 seconds; repeat until crispy and somewhat browned. If your microwave is terrible like mine and cooks them unevenly, remove the finished ones as they are cooked. They will look like this as they cook:

Remove the crisps from the pan when cool, and eat!

ETA: This is one of my most pinned recipes so I wanted to update. I have made this many, many times, and I have found that this recipe works MUCH better with reduced-fat cheese rather than full-fat. Full fat cheese gets very oily and kind of crumbles. Reduced fat cheese puffs up nicely, gets crunchy, and the resulting "crackers" are very sturdy and perfect for dipping.

Posted in: appetizer/snack