Pickle Mozzarella Sticks Are Your Salty New Obsession

What could be better than fried cheese? Pickles with fried cheese!

People who love pickles seem to really love pickles. Pickles and pickle flavor are showing up in everything from cupcakes to vodka to popsicles (yes, really) to soup. There’s even a restaurant in New York City dedicated to? You guessed it—pickles.

Just in time for the holiday season, there is now a recipe involving pickles that sounds too good to be true. If you’re searching for that perfect appetizer that will blow everyone away at your holiday party, you need check out these pickle mozzarella sticks from Delish.

Mozzarella sticks are already a crowd pleaser. What could be better than fried cheese, after all? The answer, it appears, is pickles with fried cheese.

The recipe seems pretty simple, and calls for string cheese, panko bread crumbs, and of course, dill pickles. Delish recommends dipping these babies in ranch dressing, which sounds amazing, but we could also see these going well with marinara sauce or even hot sauce or Sriracha if you like a little extra kick with your sticks.

The recipe has certainly stuck a nerve, with Delish’s how-to video having been shared more than 130,000 times on Facebook. But the comments section revealed that the reactions were definitely mixed.

One guy commented that he started out a skeptic, but then realized that pickle mozzarella sticks are the best snack ever:

“My first thought? ‘Way to ruin a good pickle and a good mozzarella stick!’ My second thought: ‘Wait, no, you put pickles on cheeseburgers and that’s fantastic; I must try this and find out for sure…'”

Others were firm in their stance that the pickle craze must end, such as the person who wrote:

“Stop. Just stop. Dill pickles are one of my favorite snacks but you guys are going overboard. Also, am I the only person who hates dill the herb? Most dill pickles don’t even have the herb in the brine, it’s the seeds and they taste totally different. Dill pickles and dill weed don’t pair well together, am I alone on this?”

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Ohers were convinced that these were the pickle snacks to end all pickle snacks: “This changed my life just looking at the video! Lol!”

If you’re wondering, like we were, where we’ve seen this combination before: Think about Italian appetizer trays. Many tend to serve dill pickles alongside various types of cheeses, including mozzarella, as well as cured meat and olives.

Given what we know about how well Italian culinary combos taste—hello, pizza!—it makes sense that dill pickles and mozzarella are no exception.