Quick Amazing Chile con Queso Dip

 

Queso dip. Everyone loves it. Everyone has their own vision of how it should taste and look.

What most folks identify as queso dip is really Chile con queso. First off, let’s talk about what it is. It’s a cheese dip. Primarily a processed cheese dip mixed with diced green chilies and tomatoes, it’s then simmered so it’s gooey and warm. Served with tortilla chips, the dip is essentially mana from the Tex-Mex gods. The perfect velvety texture counterbalanced by the salty cheesy flavor of the dip is everything you could ask for in a cheese dip/sauce. I would venture to say that it is one of the only foods that truly tastes exactly how it looks.

So where did this heavenly dip come from exactly? Like all good things in this world, Mexico.

Prior to the Spanish invasion/conquests of Latin & South America, dairy was a foreign concept for most Native Americans. Prior to the dairy injection via goats and cattle, the indigenous diet was based around corn, squash, and chilies. But as the pervasive nature of dairy spread across the lands (along with pestilence, violence, and death, THANKS COLONIZATION!) slowly foods incorporating cheese began to pop up. As Lisa Fain says in her book, Queso! , “it was perhaps inevitable that one day cheese would be paired with chiles and a culinary alliance would be born.”

So I know we Americans love to claim everything first, but the first historical evidence of queso (remember when things were based on facts?) popped up in a Mexican novel from 1816 and later on in a poem in the mid 1800s that bemoaned the fact that ladies didn’t know how to make a proper cheese stew with chiles anymore. But fear not my prideful red blooded Americans, we can proudly proclaim that the first PUBLISHED queso recipe that actually calls it Chile (Verdes) con Queso (that can be found) appeared in a American publication in 1896. A decade would pass until we saw the European influences from Swiss fondue spread its tentacles into queso dip forming the divine alliance we call Chile con Queso.

From there it was kismet, folks from the southwest quickly fell in love with this dish and queso recipes began to spring up left and right across the southwest.  The queso dip that we know and love today got its true start from Carl Roetelle, I’ll let Lisa Fain tell the rest:

In 1943, Carl Roetelle opened his canning plant in Elsa, Texas, and began to market Ro-Tel tomatoes, which were tomatoes blended with green chiles. Then in 1949, a Ro-Tel ad appeared with a recipe for making a chile con queso by simply heating a can of the spicy tomatoes with American or processed cheese until melted, and serving the dip with toasted tortillas or Fritos: a Tex-Mex classic was born.

I could spend all day talking about this, but really you should just read Lisa’s book if you want the full rundown.

My experience with queso like all good things in my life, stems from my wife, Mrs. Unmanly Chef. Growing up Iranian, the mere concept of queso dip was foreign to me. There was no chance of my mom knowing what it is, let alone letting us buy it from the grocery store. So when I saw it in abundance at my wife’s parents house when we first started dating, I recoiled in horror (until I tried it). Why the horror? I was always taught processed foods in all forms were bad and cheese was the worst of the worst. The Jeffrey Dahmer of processed foods. That’s a little extreme. But you get the gist.

Luckily my wife persisted and put the bowl of warm queso dip in front of me with a bowl of chips. I was instantly hooked.

From then on it was my mission to learn how to make it myself and to make it better than the stuff from the jar. And that’s where today’s recipe comes in, my homemade queso dip is divine. It definitely doesn’t keep its shape as well as say a jar of Tostitos queso, but the flavor is far richer and intense especially when warm. The key to this dish is the Pub Cheese, which is a mixture of processed and real cheese, the gooey cream cheese like mixture forms an salty cheesy amalgamation that is deserving of its name. Drunk people would eat the shit out of this cheese with some crackers and or bread.

Give this a try, you wont regret it.

 

 

Recipe- Chile con Queso

Ingredients

1 Container of Pub Cheese

1 small can of diced green chiles (choose your spicy level based on your preference)

*Optional* 1/4 Cup of Ground Loose Chorizo Sausage

1 Cup of Condensed Milk

1/2 Tsp. Cumin

1/2 Tsp. Coriander

1/2 Tsp. Chili Powder

1/2 Tsp. Paprika

1/2 Tsp. Salt

1 Tsp. Onion Power

1 Tsp. Garlic Powder

1 Tbsp. Butter

1/4 Cup of Finely Diced White Onion

Method

Step 1- In a medium sized sauce pan add your butter, once it foams add in your onions and all of your spices. Saute until the onions are browned, soft, and translucent. Set aside.

Step 2- In the same sauce pan add in your chorizo, brown on all sides and then add back in your onion mix. Once that’s all cooked set aside the onion sausage mix.

Step 3- Continue in the same sauce pan, now add in your cheese and chiles, at a medium low heat allow the cheese to melt, be careful not to burn. Slowly as the cheese heats add in your condensed milk and stir slowly but constantly until the cheese and milk incorporate into one another so you have a smooth cheesy mixture. Add back the rest of your previously prepared contents and slowly stir the dip together until it bubbles. Enjoy with chips!

 

The key to this dish is to not burn the cheese, avoid the temptation to turn the heat way up. Keep it low and slow and the end result will be divine.