Try This Super Simple Technique Next Time You Have To Melt Cream Cheese Quickly

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Cream cheese is a soft, spreadable staple that we love to use on bagels and toast, in cheesecakes and icing, and in simple dips for crackers and veggies. Cream cheese may be soft, but it's a refrigerated commodity that holds its thick, spreadable consistency and doesn't melt without some help from the stove or microwave. But there's a super simple technique to melt cream cheese as quickly as possible without removing it from its plastic tub.

You're essentially using the tub as a double-boiler vessel by removing the top and placing the tub of cream cheese into a deep saucepan with simmering water. You can stick a fork or spoon into the cream cheese to move the container around for an even quicker melt. This technique is fast, effective, and contained.

Plastic tubs like the kind Philadelphia cream cheese uses are FDA-approved, food-safe for storage, and use heat-resistant plastics. But, if you're worried about plastic leaching chemicals into the cream cheese as it simmers, you can remove the cream cheese from the packaging and swap it for a glass bowl or container. For that matter, you can buy a different type of cream cheese that comes in a foil-wrapped block like this Philadelphia cream cheese. You could plop it into simmering water without removing it from its wrapper if you want to save dishes (just be sure the water doesn't get too hot).

There are countless ways to use cream cheese that require you to melt it first. For example, melting cream cheese makes it a lot easier to incorporate into a dip. So, you can use the technique on a tub of cream cheese to help stir it into a spinach artichoke dip or blend with spreadable cheddar cheese to create the ultimate pub cheese dip for baked soft pretzels.

Melted cream cheese is a flavorful and rich liquid ingredient to bolster baked goods. You can add it to biscuit dough like this recipe for fluffy cream cheese cheddar biscuits. It'd also bring a tangy, savory element to a cornbread casserole or soufflé. Of course, you can simply add powdered sugar to transform melted cream cheese into cream cheese icing to spread over a carrot cake or red velvet cake or to drizzle over a batch of cinnamon rolls. Melting cream cheese also gives you the opportunity to whisk it into the fluffiest whipped cream for an upgraded bagel and toast spread experience.