Garlic Cheese Baked Mussels
Super simple and easy to make garlic cheese baked mussels recipe filled with a garlicky cream cheese topped with aged or smoked cheddar! Fantastic as an appetizer or as a snack with some drinks with some friends and family!
Servings: 30 mussels
Calories: 512kcal
Ingredients
- 800 g green-lipped mussels
- 1 cup cheddar cheese (I like to use old cheddar or smoked cheddar)
Garlic Cream Cheese
- 2 ½ tablespoons garlic (finely chopped, approximately 7-8 cloves)
- ¼ cup of fresh chives (or green onions, finely chopped)
- ½ cup unsalted butter
- 250 g cream cheese (1 package)
- ½ tablespoon of miso or light soy sauce (if you use miso, use the white or yellow miso)
Instructions
Preparation
- Defrost the green-lipped mussels by running it under cold tap water for approximately 2-3 minutes and set aside (It will continue to defrost while you are preparing the rest of the ingredients)
- Remove the cream cheese from the fridge to soften.
- Finely chop or grate the garlic and set aside
- Finely chop the chives and set aside
- Grate the cheddar cheese and set aside
Making Garlic Cream Cheese
- In a small pot, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Once the butter has melted, let it simmer for an additional 2 minutes and keep stirring.
- Add in the garlic into the butter and let it cook for about 2 minutes. Keep stirring so that the garlic doesn't burn, it tends to burn closer to the edge of the pot.
- Once the garlic butter is done, turn off the heat and pour the garlic butter into a bowl.
- Add the cream cheese into the garlic butter and mash it with a fork until everything is combined together.
- Add in the chives and miso (or soy sauce) and mix it together. Set the garlic cream cheese aside for later.
Baking the Mussels in the Oven
- Pre-heat the oven to 350F
- Crinkle up the foil and unravel it on a cookie sheet or baking pan. (You may need to use 2 trays, depending on how many mussels you have) The extra grooves in the foil will help the mussels sit straight up and flat so that the mussels can't tilt sideways which will prevent the cheese from sliding out while it's baking.
- Gently squeeze each mussel against the shell over the sink or bowl to remove any excess water that ice may have left behind and place them on the foil.
- Once all the water has been removed, pull each mussel out of the shell and then place it back in its shell. This will make it easier to eat once the cheese has been baked onto the mussels.
- Spread approximately 1 heaping teaspoon of garlic cream cheese on each mussel, mainly focusing around the top and bottom part of the shell where there are large gaps. Place the mussel back on the foil. Adjust the mussels so they are sitting straight and are not tilted. We don't want any of that yummy cheese to slide off while it's baking.
- Sprinkle some cheddar over each mussel
- Put the tray of mussels in the oven on the middle rack and bake for 10-15 minutes
- Once it has finished baking, set the oven to broil, and broil it for 4-5 minutes to brown the cheddar. Make sure you are watching it during this step so they don't burn!
- Once the cheese starts to brown and bubble, it's done! Serve it right away while it's hot and cheesy!
Notes
- This recipe uses green-lipped mussels because I find them more flavorful, larger in size for more cheese, it has been already pre-cooked and ready to go in its half shell. If you decide to use raw black mussels for this recipe, you will need to pre-cook them by boiling them in hot water for 1 mintue to pop the shells open. Discard any mussels that have broken shells or if the shells are opened all the way - they will most likely be bad. After you cook them, discard any mussels that have not opened - they are usually bad as well, confusing eh?
- Depending on the type of cheddar cheese you use, I find that aged or old cheddar tend to be on the saltier side, so use it sparingly when topping mussels with it.
