Valerie Bertinelli's Secret To Homemade Lemon Bars Is Mind Boggling

With their tangy flavor, smooth texture, and buttery crust, lemon bars are the perfect sweet treat for any time of year. It turns out former Food Network star Valerie Bertinelli is a fan of lemon bars, too, and a secret ingredient she uses may change everything you thought you knew about lemon bars — or leave you scratching your head.

Bertinelli's lemon bars start with a standard shortbread crust: Flour, powdered sugar, and — parmesan cheese. Yes, you read that right, parmesan cheese. "It may sound odd, but I'm telling you, this is amazing," Bertinelli explains in a Food Network Facebook video. She says the cheese adds just the right amount of saltiness to the crust and notes that the fruit and cheese pair well together because the sweetness of the fruit is balanced by the saltiness of the cheese.

As she blends the crust ingredients together in a food processor, the smell of the parmesan really comes through and helps create a firm flavorful crust. According to Bertinelli, parmesan is a behind-the-scenes ingredient that makes the lemon bars so much better. "If I didn't tell you there was cheese in here, you'd never know," she says. "But if it wasn't in here, you'd miss it." For what it's worth, cheese also finds its way into cocktails, so its use in baking sweet treats is perhaps not as strange as you think. 

Like Bertinelli, we're big fans of lemon bars and believe them to be both delicious and underrated on the dessert spectrum. Our recipe for the absolute best lemon bars doesn't include parmesan cheese, but there is an easy way to incorporate it if you want to try it.

Our recipe starts like Bertinelli's with an oven heated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit to make the crust first. The crust mixture calls for flour, sugar, and salt combined with butter a crumbly mixture that can be pressed into a 9x14, parchment paper-lined pan. To give Bertinelli's version of lemon bars a try, you can add grated parmesan in place of the salt: Our recipe calls for 1/4 teaspoon of salt, which has 575 mg of sodium, and a 1/3 cup of parmesan cheese contains around 500 mg of sodium, making it a great starting point.

The cooking time for both versions is very similar, so adding parmesan to your crust mixture won't hold up your prep work. You won't get a majestic cheese pull by adding parmesan to your lemon bar crust mix, but you can try it and taste for yourself whether or not it's the new ingredient you'll add to all future batches of lemon bars.