Everything You Need to Know to Celebrate National Queso Day

Editor’s note: September 20th 2021 is National Queso Day. We talked to two experts to learn more about this Southwestern specialty with roots in the Mexican dish queso fundido.

Queso, the Spanish word for cheese, refers, in Texas (and across the Southwestern US,) to a most delicious expression of melted cheese. Short for chile con queso, the hot dip contains roasted chiles and a variety of cheese combined, made gooey, and served with fresh tortillas or tortilla chips. With the incredible spectrum of cheeses available to consumers today, which cheese is the best cheese of all for this melty application?

Classic Queso

The true Tex-mex version of queso is traditionally made with processed American cheese.  Velveeta, specifically, that orange brick of “cheese food” that melts into the cheese-y lava of dreams. But cheese connoisseurs and even everyday cheese lovers often wish for more flavor, more cheese expression, if you will, from their queso.

Lisa Fain, author of the definitive book Queso!, covers the history of the delicious dish, and addresses this issue head on. Though the combo of melted cheese and fresh green chiles most likely originated in Mexico before 1900, various versions of queso began to appear in newspapers, Texas women’s club and church group cookbooks, and restaurants in the early 20th century.  Early recipes used paprika and cayenne as subs for the then hard-to-find fresh peppers, and American cheese.

Velveeta, invented in 1918, did not appear in a recipe until 1939, according to Fain, but Ro-tel, a Texas company that makes canned tomatoes with green chiles, published a recipe that started the fire: Ro-tel heated with processed cheese until melted, served with Fritos for dipping.

Cheeses in Queso

The skillet versions served near Texas border towns like El Paso, often called out as queso fundido (molten cheese) or queso flameado (flaming cheese, ignited with alcohol) offered intriguing regional variations using cheeses like asadero, muenster, chihuahua, Monterey Jack, young cheddar, and even Gruyère, but Tex-mex, a true cuisine of its own, has legions of loyal fans. In Mexico queso fundido is often made with local cheeses such as asadero, panela, Mennonite, manchego or Chihuahua.

"Jalapeno Bacon Queso Dip" by Isabelle @ Crumb is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The Starch Conundrum

Like its international cousins, fondue, fonduta, and rarebit, queso often needs the addition of starch (like flour, masa, or cornstarch) to thicken the sauce when more classic, unprocessed cheeses like those mentioned above are utilized. Says Fain, who includes dozens of recipes in her book, “Artisanal cheeses do not have added emulsifiers and oils, and whether they are young or aged, neither will melt into a smooth sauce without the addition of starches and fat to bind the sauce.”

“In terms of queso,” she continues, “brick processed cheese [like Velveeta] is the easiest way to create a pot of cheesy gold. The more processed the cheese, the easier it is to melt because the emulsifiers and oils enable the sauce to stay smooth and not break. Brick processed cheese is the best for melting and requires no additional ingredients to create a creamy sauce. American cheese, which is less processed and tastes better as it has more pure dairy, does need starch and additional fat added to it when using it for a sauce if you want the sauce to stay together.” Contemporary versions use artisan cheese with sodium citrate plus liquid (often beer or water) to bring the full flavors of “real” cheese to meet the creamy gooey dip that is queso. It’s a technique we shared in an earlier article, Why Sodium Citrate is the Secret to the Silkiest Cheese Sauce. Fain explains, “While the sodium citrate is not an everyday pantry ingredient if you do have access to it, it creates a queso that has a lot of depth of flavor, along with that silky texture people expect with their queso.”

We asked Paula Lambert, a legendary pioneer among American artisan cheese-makers, for her take on the queso cheese challenge. “When I wrote Cheese Lover’s Cookbook and Guide,” says Lambert, who founded the Mozzarella Company in Dallas in 1982 and grew up Fort Worth, Texas, “I had to include a queso recipe, and of course I used Velveeta and Ro-tel for the classic and best of them all.  It’s funny because it’s hard to find Velveeta at the grocer’s, you buy it on the aisle, it’s not even refrigerated!”

caciotta photo courtesy of Mozzarella Company

She also had to include a recipe for what she calls the gourmet version. “You roast all the chiles, and be careful to add cornstarch and wine, just like fondue, and don’t overheat, to keep the cheese from separating.” Her tip—try Mozzarella Company Caciotta, a Texan version of Monterey Jack, for an excellent and flavorful addition to your next queso dip, unless you plan on hitting the process cheese aisle.

Choriqueso Recipe

In the South Texas border town of Laredo, a skillet queso of stringy white cheese studded with tangy chorizo sausage reigns supreme. Choriqueso, as it’s commonly known, is so prevalent that it can be difficult to find creamy yellow queso there. This is a hearty dish meant to be eaten with tortillas, and it can be  enjoyed at any hour of the day. You could use store-bought chorizo and remove the casing, but it’s not difficult to make your own, as many in Laredo do and as I do here.

choriqueso photo credit Aubrie Pick and Ten Speed Press

Choriqueso

Makes 6 to 8 servings

2 ancho chiles, seeded, rehydrated and chopped 

2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar 

¼ cup water 

2 Tablespoons chopped yellow onion 

1 clove garlic, chopped ½ teaspoon kosher salt 

½ teaspoon ground cumin 

½ teaspoon paprika 

½ teaspoon dried  

oregano 

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon 

¼ teaspoon cayenne 

1 tablespoon  

vegetable oil 

½ pound ground pork 

1 pound Monterey Jack cheese, shredded 

Warm flour tortillas, for serving 

Place the anchos in a blender with the vinegar and water. Blend until smooth, then add the onion, garlic, salt, cumin, paprika, oregano, cinnamon, and cayenne. Blend again until smooth, scraping down the sides with a rubber spatula as needed. If it’s too stiff to blend properly, add water, 1 tablespoon at a time. 

In a large broiler-safe skillet, warm the vegetable oil over medium low heat. Pour in the chile puree and cook for 1 minute. Add the ground pork and stir until well combined with the sauce. Cook, stirring occasionally, until no longer pink, about 10 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasonings, if you like. 

Position a rack 6 inches from the upper heating element and preheat the broiler. 

Evenly sprinkle the Monterey Jack cheese over the cooked chorizo in the skillet. Place the skillet under the broiler and cook for 2 minutes, or until the cheese is lightly browned and bubbling. 

Serve warm in the skillet with tortillas.

Recipe reprinted by permission from QUESO! by Lisa Fain Copyright 2017 Published by Ten Speed Press.