No holiday is complete without a Chipped Beef Cheese Ball on the table. This savory snack is filled with cream cheese, green onions, seasoning, and buddig beef.
Looking for more cheese ball recipes? Try our Pineapple Cheese Ball with ham! Or give our Taco Cheese Ball a try, the perfect game day snack idea.
Why this Recipe Works
Hosting holidays and gatherings can be stressful. Don’t let food be the cause of your stress.
I love having a handful of easy snacks and appetizers that are hearty and delicious, but low maintenance!
From easy grape jelly meatballs to 7 layer taco dip, we love recipes that can serve a crowd with very little prep.
Today’s savory cheese ball fits that scenario!
- Make ahead of time! Can be made the day before the event.
- Serves a crowd.
- Packed with flavor.
- Very little prep time!
PRO TIP: Store in refrigerator wrapped in plastic wrap until ready to serve. Will maintain it’s beautiful round shape while wrapped.
Ingredient Notes
- Cream Cheese- you’ll want full fat cream cheese here. It’s packed with flavor and the star of the show.
- Italian Dressing- store bought works fine, but we love making homemade Italian Dresssing too. The dressing adds the right amount of seasoning, while helping bind it all together.
- Green Onions- slice these from the whites all the way to the ends of the greens, it adds the perfect onion flavor without overpowering the cheese ball.
- Buddig Beef- also can be called dried beef. It’s a thin-sliced lunchment sold in small packets. If you can’t find it, you can use thinly sliced deli ham or roast beef too.
- Crackers- we serve our cheese ball with Ritz crackers, Townhouse crackers or Club crackers. All have that buttery flaky taste and texture that pairs perfectly with this beef cheese ball.
PRO TIP: Add a sprinkle of homemade everything bagel seasoning to give a boost of flavor to this dip.
How to Make a Cheese Ball
Combine Ingredients- mix the softened cream cheese with dressing, onions, and chopped lunchmeat.
Line a bowl with saran wrap. Spoon cheese ball filling into bowl and wrap the plastic wrap around the cheese ball. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
Unwrap. When ready to serve, unwrap the plastic wrap and you’ll have a beautiful shaped cheese ball. Serve with crackers and enjoy.
Recipe FAQs
Cheese Balls need to be stored in the refrigerator in an airtight container or plastic wrap. These can be kept for about 1 week.
Once you’ve served your cheese ball, do not leave it out for more than two hours. Wrap it up and refrigerate it for later. If left out over 2 hours, don’t save it.
Yes! For today’s chipped beef cheese ball, you can chop up some pecans or walnuts (or both) and roll it into the nuts right before serving.
Tips and Tricks
- Soften your cream cheese for cheese balls for about half an hour on the counter prior to assembling.
- So many great substitutions can be made! Swap out the italian dressing for ranch dressing. And use cooked and crumbled bacon instead of the dried beef. This creates a delicious Bacon Ranch Cheese Ball.
- Want some spice? Add in some finely diced jalapeno peppers for a spicy kick. They pair quite nicely with the creaminess of the cheese ball.
- Add more cheese. Add some shredded cheddar cheese to your cheese ball if you want more cheesy flavor!
- Double the recipe. Got a large crowd to feed? This recipe easily doubles!
- Serving Suggestions: serve with crackers, toasted slices of a baguette, homemade bagel chips, fresh vegetables, and pretzels.
Sweet Cheese Ball Recipes
More Appetizer Recipes
- BLT Dip
- Artichoke Dip
- Pumpkin Pie Dip
- Cheesecake Dip
- Pico de Gallo
- Fruit Salsa with homemade cinnamon tortilla chips
Game Day Appetizers
See all Appetizers recipes
Chipped Beef Cheese Ball Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 packages cream cheese, softened 8 ounce each
- 2 Tablespoons Italian dressing
- 2 green onions chopped
- 1 package Beef Buddig lunchmeat, chopped 6 ounce
Instructions
- Mix all ingredients in a bowl.
- Line a small bowl with plastic wrap. Spoon cheese ball filling onto the plastic wrap. Wrap it completely to shape it like a ball.
- Refrigerate until ready to use! Serve with crackers. ENJOY.
Notes
- Soften your cream cheese for cheese balls for about half an hour on the counter prior to assembling.
- So many great substitutions can be made! Swap out the italian dressing for ranch dressing. And use cooked and crumbled bacon instead of the dried beef. This creates a delicious Bacon Ranch Cheese Ball. Or use deli ham instead of the beef.
- Want some spice? Add in some finely diced jalapeno peppers for a spicy kick. They pair quite nicely with the creaminess of the cheese ball.
- Add more cheese. Add some shredded cheddar cheese to your cheese ball if you want more cheesy flavor!
- Double the recipe. Got a large crowd to feed? This recipe easily doubles!
- Serving Suggestions: serve with crackers, toasted slices of a baguette, bagel chips, fresh vegetables, and pretzels.
We loving making this cheeseball for game nights or as an appetizer during gatherings! The flavors are so amazing together and so EASY to make!
We love this recipe! Always a big hit here! Can’t wait to make this again! So delicious and yummy!
Tried this for a small get together and it was so good! I’d never had chipped beef before but I definitely want to use it in more recipes now!
My grandma made this and it’s my absolute favorite. But we don’t use itialian dressing. We use cream of mushroom soup and add garlic powder and dried minced onions ( onions can totally be left out if you dont like them, I do) and then it’s a dip instead of a ball. Club crackers with it are the best!!!
My family makes a similar cheese ball. Cream cheese, acent, ham(the cheap thin Wal Mart brand) and green onions.
Dice the ham and green onions, mix the soften cream cheese acent and green onions together. Form into a ball and chill.
I like this recipe. I roll mine in coarse ground pepper.
We make this every Christmas only difference is add sliced green olives with the dried beef in the jar yummy….
I’ve made something similar to this for holidays and love it – the only big difference is that it had chopped black olives in it.
Oooh I love black olives, that sounds like an awesome addition!
I made this today for my Christmas Gathering..I put a pinch of dill seeds-crushed, 3 cloves of Garlic, 2 jalapeno, i love spicy food… 2 more green onion, so a total of 4, i used Summer Sausage and not the beef, and a dash of Worchestershire Sauce…The Worchestershire make all the different..Love this recipe, planning on making it again..Ooo.. also by the way i used 1 reg cream cheese and 1 jalapeno cream cheese:)
I make one similar, but I use 1 1/2 packages of beef, and 1 TB Worcestershire Sauce and no Italian dressing. I also cover the outside with another 1 1/2 packages of the beef. My youngest son does not even like cream cheese and he loves this.
Janice I make mine the exact same way. I am 43 years old and this recipe has been in my family since I was a little girl… Great on triscuits!!
My mom made it that exact way when I was a kid, and it’s always been one of my favorite things to eat. So good!
Is the salad dressing dry Good Seasons?
Nope. I used bottled, prepared dressing
This has similar ingredients to one I’ve always made and is always gone to the very last. I too use horseradish and I like to roll mine in dill weed. Hormel makes dried beef in jars
and I find it at Wal-Mart. Thanks for a new recipe! The seasonings I use are as follows…
horseradish (1T)
garlic salt (1/2t)
Dried onions (1T)
Roll in dill weed
I make something similar except I roll the cream cheese up inside the beef, and the cream cheese filling has horseradish to taste added. Careful with the horseradish! Doesn’t need crackers, but maybe I’ll try cutting up the meat and mixing it like your recipe. Will have to try your recipe too. Thanks!
Hi, I make the same cheeseball but instead of the Italian dressing I add a little Worchestire sauce. It is very good and I receive a lot of compliments on it.
Love the idea of Worchestershire Sauce! YUM.
Mmmmm….edible chive string. Making this for NYE! Yum!
Thanks Michelle. Happy New Year!!
This sounds tasty, but I have to ask…What in the world is Beef Buddig? Never heard of it! Is it like dried chipped beef that you can get in a little jar? Can anything be substituted for it?
Hi Sue,
Beef Buddig is dried chipped beef, yes. I buy it in a package from the lunchmeat section, I didn’t know it came in jars too!
Buddig is a brand name for thin sliced luncheon meat. Beef is one of their many choices. It is found in the refrigerated luncheon meat section. If is not the same as dried chipped beef that is in a little jar in the canned meat section. They are two different things.
What did u use to wrap with to make it look like a package?
Great blog. Want to very much follow.
Thank you! Glad to have you following 🙂
Okay, so this is totally going in my repertoire. My family will LOVE this!
My hubby makes something very similar except he doesn’t wrap it and make it all look all pretty like yours:-) Love the fun onion string around it! I can’t wait to hear what you think of your new lens!!!
This sounds wonderful and your new lens works great!
Thank you Terry! Happy New Year!