Philadelphia's Best Cream Cheese Flavor Is Deliciously Spicy
You may be surprised to learn that Philadelphia Cream Cheese was originally launched in New York, not Philadephia, by William Lawrence, a dairy farmer. One of Lawrence's clients, a highly regarded grocery store wanted a spread made of rich cheese. Aiming to please, Lawrence bought a neufchâtel factory — neufchâtel is essentially the French, less fatty, softer precursor to cream cheese — and the rest is history. Lawrence's amendments to French neufchâtel earned him the title of cream cheese inventor and made him the first person to commercialize cream cheese in the Americas.
Since its start in the 1870s, Philadelphia Cream Cheese has continued to evolve. And with over 15 different flavors, we were curious about which one was the best.
We ate our way through 10 different flavors and landed on one all-star: spicy jalapeño. For those who love spice, jalapeño cream cheese delivers without overpowering the palate and brings a nice hit of prickly pepper, which is immediately neutralized by the cream cheese. Overall it's the perfect blend of rich, tangy cream cheese, and crunchy spicy jalapeños.
Spice up your recipes with Philadelphia spicy jalapeño cream cheese
For our ranking, we ate the Philadelphia spicy jalapeño cream cheese on a plain bagel, to let its flavors shine, but this is a flavor combo that could let itself to a number of delicious snacks. Cheddar biscuits, for example, are very easy to convert to jalapeño cheddar biscuits by replacing the 4 ounces of regular cream cheese with Philadephia's spicy jalapeño. In a similar vein, these cream cheese and prosciutto pinwheels would be delicious with a subtle hint of spice. Finally, cheese balls are a great place to experiment with your spicy jalapeño cream cheese use; we recommend trying this cheddar bacon ranch ball with the jalapeño swap.
As you can tell, we're only recommending savory recipes because, well, it makes the most sense. But there is such a thing as spicy ice cream, and perhaps this is the perfect unexpected platform in which Philadelphia Cream Cheese's spicy jalapeño option will shine the most.