Cherry Chocolate Chip Cheeseball makes a perfect Valentine’s Day dessert! This easy sweet cheese ball recipe is full of juicy maraschino cherries and covered with chocolate chips.
Served as dessert or a party snack, you can’t go wrong with sweet cheese ball dips! This Monster Cookie Cheeseball is a reader favorite. You’ll love this Toffee Chocolate Chip Cheeseball too.
Why this Recipe is Best
No one can resist chocolate and cherries. When you combine them with a rich cream cheese base, you get a luscious dip perfect for scooping with graham crackers.
- Cherry Cheese Ball is a quick and easy dessert or appetizer.
- It comes together in no time with just 6 ingredients!
- You can make this recipe as a cheese ball OR a dip.
- Maraschino cherries make it beautifully colorful!
Love maraschino cherries? Try our cherry chocolate chip shortbread cookies for a flavorful treat.
Ingredient Notes
You only need a handful of ingredients for this Cherry Chocolate Chip Cheeseball recipe.
- Cream cheese – Let it soften on the counter for a few minutes first.
- Butter – I prefer using unsalted butter in this cheese ball recipe. Use our tips and trick on how to soften butter quickly.
- Maraschino Cherries – You will need both the cherries themselves and some of the juice from the jar.
- Powdered sugar – For sweetness and a smooth texture.
- Chocolate chips – We used mini chocolate chips. The smaller size makes them easier to scoop up!
Tips and Tricks
How to make this cheese ball recipe as a dip:
- Beat together all of the ingredients as directed in the recipe card.
- Fold in the maraschino cherries and just half of the chocolate chips.
- Now you can transfer the dip to a serving bowl and enjoy right away. No extra steps required.
How to make cherry cheese ball:
- If you want to make this as a cheese ball as pictured, line a mixing bowl with plastic wrap. Transfer the cheese ball dip into the bowl.
- Wrap the plastic wrap around the dip to form a ball.
- Refrigerate the cheese ball over night. When you’re ready to serve the cherry chocolate chip cheese ball, unwrap it and invert it onto a serving platter.
- Cover the top of the cheese ball with the rest of the chocolate chips. Serve and enjoy!
Recipe FAQs
This cheese ball tastes great with all kinds of dippers. Serve it with graham crackers, pretzels, animal crackers, or wafer cookies! Fruit slices are a tasty choice too.
Make sure you give the cheese ball enough time to chill. I recommend chilling for at least 8 hours. If it’s still too soft, don’t worry: you can serve it as a dip instead of a cheese ball! Still delicious.
I have not tasted this with fresh cherries but you could certainly try it! The flavor will be different as fresh cherries do not have added almond flavor and sweeteners. The color will not be as pink with out the added maraschino juice either.
Depending on how fresh your cream cheese is, this cherry chocolate chip cheeseball stays good in the fridge for 3 -4 days. Make sure to keep it chilled and tightly covered when you’re not eating it.
More Easy Dessert Recipes
- Lemon Tart
- Cherry Fudge with Dark Chocolate: this is a hit every time I make it!
- White Cupcakes
- Divinity Recipe
- Chocolate Covered Oreos
- Cherry Puppy Chow
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Cherry Chocolate Chip Cheeseball
Ingredients
- 8 ounce cream cheese softened
- ¼ cup unsalted butter softened
- ¼ cup maraschino cherry juice
- 2 ¼ cup powdered sugar
- ¼ cup chopped maraschino cherries
- 1 cup mini chocolate chips divided
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, beat cream cheese and butter until combined. Add cherry juice and powdered sugar until fully blended. Fold in chopped cherries and 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips.
- At this point you can either serve immediately…or continue on to make as a cheeseball. For the cheeseball, line a rounded bowl with plastic wrap. Pour mixture into bowl, bringing up sides of plastic wrap to cover the top. Refrigerate overnight.
- When ready to serve, invert cheeseball onto serving plate and press remaining 1/2 cup mini chips into the cheeseball. Serve with graham crackers, animal cookies, apple slices, pretzels, etc!!
Notes
- Having made this several times, it occasionally comes out too soft to set up. I have yet to figure out the rhyme or reason why sometimes it’s soft, and sometimes it sets up fine. When it it too soft, rolling it in chocolate chips does help! Or putting it in a bowl and serving as a dip works too!
- Beat together all of the ingredients as directed in the recipe card.
- Fold in the maraschino cherries and just half of the chocolate chips.
- Now you can transfer the dip to a serving bowl and enjoy right away. No extra steps required.
Nutrition
Cherry Chocolate Chip Cheeseball colorful, sweet and easy-to-make treat for Valentine’s Day or any occasion!
Made this for a gathering and it just wasn’t well received ….Too Sweet! Tossed most of it 🙁
This sounds sooooo good! I am going to make this for a thanksgiving gathering along with a ‘real’ cheese ball! 😉 I was thinking those thin chocolate wafer cookies would be an awesome dipper. And sugar cookies. Lawd have mercy.
I tried this cheese ball today. I read what you said about it sometimes coming out to soft. I myself added a bit more confectionery sugar and just a Tablespoon at a time of the cherry juice. 1/4 cup is too much. Also made sure I dried the chopped cherries well. Tasted like it was missing something so I added a 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract. Perfect . The consistency seemed perfect. Chilling it now so I can form it into a ball. Thanks for sharing!
*Liquidy
So liquid! It’s in fridge now, but have a feeling it’ll just be dip and no cheeseball after seeing these comments. That’s ok though. Maybe only a tsp or 2 of cherry juice instead of 1/4 cup? When I make salty Cheeseballs, it’s just cream cheese, toppings, and a little Worcester sauce(around a tablespoon), so maybe it’s just too much liquid…
OMG!!! This looks super delicious!! You can never go wrong with any kind of cheeseball especially when its chocolate ?
I had high hopes for this one. In the end, it was not really a cheese ball as much as it was basically creme cheese icing with cherries in it. Ended up being a dip for us.
Will modify accordingly in the future.
I used this dip as a filling between layers of chocolate cream cheese poundcake. Yummy! Thank you for sharing your recipe.
Oh, that sounds heavenly 🙂
I’m hoping to make this next weekend for a women’s retreat dessert. If I make it with raspberries, what do I do for the juice? HELP!
CHERRY-MINT CHOCOLATE a burst of cherry zest both are great flavour
This is an awesome idea! Thanks so much for sharing the recipe! I can’t wait to try it.
I just finished making this for a Christmas lunch tomorrow. Sad to say it just turned into what looks like frosting. Nothing remotely cheese BALL like at all.
PEPPERMINT CHOCOLATE This is pure delight for your taste buds.
CHERRY-MINT CHOCOLATE a burst of cherry zest
Both are great flavour
I just wanted to let you know that I love looking at all of your recipes that you post. I tried the cherry cheese ball one this weekend and it was super good. At first I tried it with gram crackers which were good but I am not a huge fan a gram crackers so my dad had a great idea to try it on a bagel which i must say was the best idea ever. It was so good and what a good way to have a super good snack or even breakfast. I am going to try the cherry fudge next because I am addicted to this cherry flavor.
I think I’m going to have to make this dairy free! My boys and I love cherries but the homemade ones are the best. Yes, we make our own maraschino cherries. Yes it takes three days but they are so good it’s worth it.
I had no idea you can make your own!! What a fun thing to do 🙂