Cheesy garlic pull apart bread: An insanely addictive cheesy garlic herb butter combo stuffed into sliced Italian bread and baked until hot and melty.

How about we ring in the New Year with this cheesy garlic pull apart bread?

I mean, who can possibly turn down warm, buttery bread stuffed with garlic, herbs, butter, and a shitload of cheese?

This pull apart bread is a cross between my baked fontina garlic cheese dip, my garlic knots, and my garlic parmesan pull apart bread.

The cheese that I stuffed between the slices is shredded fontina. Fontina melts beautifully and has such a great flavor!

It’s one of my very favorite types of cheese!

There’s plenty of garlic flavor here too and this is what really reminded me of the baked fontina but also of that pull apart bread I made a few years ago.

And whereas the garlic parmesan pull apart bread is more like a monkey bread, this cheesy garlic pull apart bread is made with a baked loaf of bread.

Unlike monkey bread, you don’t have to roll out individual pieces of dough. You’ll just slice up a loaf of bread and go from there!

This pull apart loaf couldn’t be more simple to make!

You can use just about any type of bread too! Ciabatta, Italian, or French bread would be perfect. But so would sourdough, semolina, or even a whole grain harvest bread!

Now, let me tell you how to make this pull apart bread:

1. You’re going to start with a loaf of bread. No brainer, right?
2. Slice the loaf from end to end without cutting through the bottom. You want to leave a strong base to the loaf.
3. Next, you’ll spread softened butter between each slice.
4. Sprinkle some garlic powder and Italian herb mix between the slices.
5. Grab a bunch of shredded cheese and stuff it between each slice.
6. Drizzle the top of the bread with olive oil and sprinkle with some more herbs.
7. Wrap the loaf up in some foil and bake at 425° F for 15 minutes.

Once we unwrapped the hot bread, it was insanely difficult to not just devour the whole entire loaf.

It’s just so cheesy! I mean, look at that cheese pull!

How can anyone resist this??

Can we also talk for a sec about what you can serve this cheesy garlic pull apart bread with. Because really, we can go a couple of ways here?

First, it makes a fantastic appetizer!

Maybe you’ll want to add it to your New Year’s Eve or Super Bowl Sunday apps menu in addition to some BBQ chex mix, queso fundido with chorizo, and soft pretzel bites with cheese sauce.

(P.S. If you’re making this on New Year’s, you’ll want one of my Mistletoe Kiss cocktails to join the party!)

OR!! Maybe you’re making some cozy pasta for dinner, like my one-pot creamy sausage pasta, three cheese lasagna roll-ups, or penne alla vodka.

This cheesy garlic pull apart loaf would be the perfect bread to dip into all that delicious sauce.

Or perhaps you’re just looking for a quick and easy dinner on a busy weeknight?

Pick up a bag of salad mix at the grocery store and make this cheesy garlic pull apart bread with some marinara sauce for dipping to go with that salad.

You can justify eating almost anything for dinner when you serve a salad along with it, can’t you?

And in my humble opinion, this cheesy pull apart bread doesn’t need to be served with only Italian food. What about grilled steak, Ina’s turkey meatloaf, this chicken with country gravy, or this butterflied and grilled chicken?

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Cheesy Garlic Pull Apart Bread

Yield: 8-10 servings

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 25 minutes

Cheesy garlic pull apart bread is an easy and quick appetizer that is insanely addictive too! You'll stuff a cheesy garlic herb butter combo into sliced Italian bread and bake it until it's hot, melty, and utterly delicious.

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Ingredients

• 1 loaf or round of crusty bread (Italian, ciabatta, French, sourdough, etc.) (see note below)
• 6 tbsp salted butter, softened
• ½ tsp garlic powder
• 2 ½ tsp Italian herb mix, divided
• 6 oz shredded Italian fontina, mozzarella, or an Italian cheese blend (not Danish fontina with the red rind) (see note below)
• Extra virgin olive oil

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 425° F with a rack in the lower 3rd position of the oven.
2. Slice bread into ¾-inch sections, taking care to not slice all the way through the bottom of the bread. You want the loaf to stay intact with the sections fanning out, just like hasselback potatoes. Grease a long piece of aluminum foil with a drizzle of olive oil. If your bread is really wide, use a long piece of extra-wide heavy duty foil.
3. Spread some butter onto each piece of bread. Sprinkle the garlic powder and 2 teaspoons of the Italian herb mix in between each piece. Stuff a couple tablespoons of cheese between each piece. Carefully transfer the stuffed bread to the aluminum foil, positioning it lengthwise on the foil.
4. Drizzle some olive oil over the top of the bread and sprinkle it with the remaining ½ teaspoon of the herb mix. Wrap the bread up from the short side and then at the ends, leaving a little "breathing room" inside the foil (i.e., don't wrap it tightly).
5. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven, unwrap the bread, and serve while still hot.

Notes

This pull apart bread is a versatile one! If you don't have/can't find fontina, use shredded mozzarella or a shredded Italian cheese blend. Just about any type of crusty loaf bread will work, as will a round of sourdough, too.

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