Cranberry Brie Bites — ❤️🤤 The perfect two-bite holiday appetizer recipe with melted brie cheese, sweet-tart cranberry sauce, and fresh rosemary all nestled inside a buttery soft crust! An EASY appetizer recipe with just 4 main ingredients that’s ready in 30 minutes! PERFECT for Thanksgiving celebrations, holiday and Christmas parties, or for New Year’s Eve!
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Easy Brie Bites with Cranberry Sauce
When you’re in need of an easy holiday appetizer recipe that’s a guaranteed crowd pleaser, this is the one!
These little two-bite gems are made with flaky crescent roll dough, tart cranberry sauce, creamy brie cheese, and garnished with a bit of fresh rosemary to really capitalize on a wonderful holiday flavor profile.
This is a quick brie appetizer to throw together – ready in just 30 minutes from start to finish with only a handful of ingredients. After all the other complicated and laborious holiday recipes, it’s so nice to have one that’s not!
Whether you want to serve these brie cranberry bites before your Thanksgiving meal, for Christmas parties and holiday entertaining, or make them for New Year’s Eve parties, I promise no one can resist melted cheese cushioned within warm, soft bread and cranberry sauce for the perfect bite.
Ingredients in Brie and Cranberry Bites
To make these cranberry brie cheese bites, you’ll need the following common and easy to find ingredients at your local grocery store:
- Crescent roll dough – I use Pillsbury Crescent Roll Dough but store brands or other brands are fine
- Wheel of brie cheese
- Whole cranberry sauce – store bought or homemade including Cranberry Cabernet Cranberry Sauce, Spiced Cranberry Sauce with Apples, Cranberry Currant Sauce, or Cranberry Pineapple Mango Sauce
- Pecans, walnuts, or almonds – optional
- Fresh rosemary – optional but recommended
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.
How to Make Cranberry Brie Bites with Crescent Roll Dough
I absolutely appetizer recipes that are easy and foolproof, and this one is that type of recipe. The crescent roll brie bites are ready in 30 minutes total time from start to finish!
- Preheat oven to 375F and spray a 24-count mini muffin pan with cooking spray.
- Dust a cutting board with a bit of flour and gently unroll the crescent roll dough, press the seams together, and cut out 24 small pieces.
- Place one square of dough into each cavity of the prepared pan. Cut brie into a 24 pieces and place one cube of brie into each cavity. Top with a scant teaspoon of cranberry sauce.
- Optionally add a pinch of nuts and fresh rosemary.
- Bake until the crescent dough is lightly golden browned and set before allowing to cool momentarily and serving.
Serving Suggestions
You can serve these Cranberry Brie Bites hot and fresh out of the oven.
But they will also hold well at room temp for a few hours so you can make them before guests arrive for a dinner party or holiday meal and let them sit out as a self-serve appetizer or snack.
Recipe FAQs
I strongly recommend using a 24-count mini muffin tin for this recipe rather than a standard sized 12-count muffin pan.
However, if you want to try to make it work, you can put double the quantity of filling (cheese + cranberries) in each of the 12 cups. Baking time will increase to probably about 18 to 20 minutes but that’s a guess and you need to watch and see for yourself! Bake until done, but not burt!
I recommend whole cranberry sauce and this can be either homemade cranberry sauce of from a can.
If you’re using canned cranberry sauce to save time, look for something that says ‘whole cranberry’ or ‘whole berry’ because otherwise it’s more like a jelly. What you do not want is the type of cranberry sauce that just kind of plops out of the can in one big blob. Nope! 
Sure you can! If you have leftover cranberry sauce from holiday entertaining and meals, by all means go ahead and use it.
If you need any recommendations, I have Cranberry Cabernet Cranberry Sauce, Spiced Cranberry Sauce with Apples, Cranberry Currant Sauce, or Cranberry Pineapple Mango Sauce. All of them are fast and easy to make.
Yes you can make the bites by using puff pastry dough rather than crescent roll dough. Thaw it (but not too much, just enough so you can work with it) and then carry on with the rest of the recipe.
I find that cranberry brie bites made with puff pastry will take slightly longer to bake than crescent roll cranberry brie bites but your mileage may vary so just keep an eye on them.
You probably can but I haven’t tried the recipe this way. Phyllo tends to be super delicate, bakes very quickly because it’s just a single layer of dough so really watch them in the oven after you assemble them and place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or foil.
The rich flavor of melted brie cheese is like no other and for this recipe, I do recommend you stick with brie. After all you can’t have brie cranberry bites without the brie!
The only substitution that’s similar that comes to mind is Gruyere cheese, although it’s pricey and not likely something you just have randomly lingering around. If you’re a blue cheese fan, I could also see a hunk of rich blue cheese working nicely. Goat cheese would also work.
As I mentioned already, these are lovely hot and fresh right out of the oven because the melty brie is so lovely but they will hold well at room temp for a few hours.
However, I don’t recommend making them in advance because the bread hardens as they cool, so does the cheese (plus you’d want to refrigerate it), and they’re not nearly as tasty when they’re not freshly made. So plan to make these the day of your party or event.
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Cranberry Brie Bites
Ingredients
- one 8-ounce tube crescent roll dough, thawed puff pastry dough may be substituted
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, for dusting work surface
- 8 ounce wheel brie cheese, divided
- ½ cup whole berry cranberry sauce, divided (homemade* or store bought)
- ¼ cup chopped pecans or walnuts, optional; divided
- Sprigs fresh rosemary, cut into small pieces; optional for during baking or garnshing; divided
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375F and spray a 24-count mini muffin pan very well with cooking spray; set aside. Tip – I strongly recommend making as written and using a 24-count mini muffin pan but if all you have is a 12-count pan, it will still work. Just double the quantity of the cheese, cranberry sauce, and optional nuts/rosemary, and bake longer – about 18 minutes, but keep an eye on them as all ovens, muffn pans, etc. vary.
- Lightly dust a cutting board or clean counter top with the flour, unroll the crescent roll dough, and press the seams together. Tip – If you can find crescent roll dough sheets, that's ideal because there are no seams. However, regular crescent roll dough will work. You can use any name brand or generic brand you'd like. If you're using puff pastry dough, make sure it's thawed, but still chilled which is key to having it actually puff up nicely during baking.
- Using a sharp knife or sharp pizza wheel, cut the dough into 24 equal-sized pieces.
- Place one piece of dough in each of the sprayed muffin pan cavities; set aside.
- Evenly sliced a wheel of brie into 24 equally-sized pieces and place one piece inside each of the crescent roll dough pieces.
- Top each with a small dollop of cranberry sauce. You don't need much, about a teaspoon, give or take, for each.
- If desired, evenly sprinkle a couple nuts onto each cheese and cranberry mound.
- If you like the taste of rosemary, add a small sprig of rosemary to each mound before baking. If you're not as fond of it, then I suggest garnishing after baking for the visual appeal, and you can take it off rather than eating it. But that's tricky to do if it bakes in with the cheese.
- Bake for about 10 minutes, or until the dough is set and lightly golden browned. Notes – The baking time is an estimate and because all brands of dough, muffin pans, the exact size of your hunks of cheese, just how many cranberry sauce you added, your oven, your climate, etc. there will be variances in bake times. Bake until your appetizer is done and set (not raw) but also not burnt. You may need to add a couple minutes to my estimate, but start checking at 10 mintues. If you're using puff pastry dough, I find it takes longer to bake because it's thicker; I would start checkng at 15 minutes and go from there.
- Allow the brie bites to cool momentarily in the pan, remove, and serve.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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