You Only Need 3 Ingredients For No-Bake Oreo Balls

True confession: I'm a super-lazy cook. I like to think about food, write about it, research it, and eat it, but when it comes to the actual amount of prep time I'm willing to put in, my patience is limited. Therefore, I love a good no-bake recipe and it's even better if there are only a few ingredients. What really takes it over the top, though, is if the main ingredient is a super-versatile kitchen star like smashed-up Oreos. 

While Oreos can't do everything (I've yet to try them as breading for chicken tenders), I can and do use them to make pie crusts and mug cakes and to flavor DIY McFlurrys. (My neighborhood has yet to get the memo about the machine glitch being fixed, alas.) Needless to say, I'm pretty pleased with this recipe for three-ingredient Oreo balls. The cookies can even be two-ingredient balls if you're as attention-challenged as I am.

Making the balls takes less time than introducing them since literally all you do is smash up a package of cookies (the standard 14-ounce size containing about 36 cookies) and mix the crumbs with a half-pound brick of cream cheese. Roll them into balls and you have, well, cookie balls. Tangy, creamy, delicious cookie balls. For a more finished-looking product, melt 12 ounces of vanilla candy coating or almond bark and dip the balls in to coat them like cake pops. They'll need about 10 minutes to cool and set before they're ready for their close-up.

In the space of one super-short recipe for Oreo balls, we've already had two variants, the naked and the dipped. I never met a recipe I didn't want to tinker with, though, so I'm pretty sure I'll be using these as templates to do all kinds of additional stuff with the basic cookie-candy-whatever-it-is. The first thing that comes to mind is using flavored cream cheese, since whoopsie, I accidentally bought a two-pack where one of them was strawberry. I'm not big on sweet bagels, but strawberry Oreo balls do sound pretty amazing. I'd also consider making them with novelty Oreos if I wanted to risk getting my heart broken again. (Still mourning the pistachio Oreo Thins that seem to have been a pandemic casualty.)

Another way to change up this dish would be to vary the coating as opposed to simply omitting it. Milk or dark chocolate would make for a more chocolatey dessert than the cookies and cream version. While you could opt for a bit of both by dipping the balls in one type of chocolate and drizzling with another, a lower-effort option (my specialty) involves rolling the cream cheese and Oreo crumb balls in flaked coconut, chopped nuts, or sprinkles. You could even go for a deconstructed-ish take by using still more crushed Oreos.