Putting the fun in fundido since 1900
September 7, 2017 2:55 PM Subscribe

posted by Room 641-A (68 comments total) 43 users marked this as a favorite

This is true.
posted by radicalawyer at 3:12 PM on September 7, 2017

Any article that references Robb Walsh, The Homesick Texan and Ro-tel can't be all bad...
posted by jim in austin at 3:24 PM on September 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

Real Mexican Queso fundido is one of the greatest things you can put in your mouth.

The Velveeta and Ro-tel "Queso" dip is - like the majority of the culinary gutter known as "Tex-Mex" - a sad, pale imitation. Calling it the World's Most Perfect Food is like saying that Ranch dressing is the World's Most Perfect Beverage.

I was going to make a joke about how the author must have been raised on prison food, but I'm pretty sure that there are ambitious* prison chefs making much better food out of ramen sauce packets and canned mackerel from the commissary.

*a word no one has ever used to describe Tex-Mex food.
posted by Anoplura at 3:30 PM on September 7, 2017 [11 favorites]

This is extremely relevant to my interests.
posted by aka burlap at 3:31 PM on September 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

...and to be clear: I'm not saying that I don't enjoy Tex-Mex Queso. But to pretend that it is anything but trashy comfort food - on the level of boxed mac-and-cheese, perhaps - is insulting.
posted by Anoplura at 3:33 PM on September 7, 2017 [3 favorites]

Also, Tex-Mex isn't imitation Mexican food, it's its own thing! Its own DELICIOUS, easy-to-love thing. Ro-tel + Velveeta isn't the classiest of dishes but it is its own tradition and I think it tastes great, if uncomplicated.
posted by aka burlap at 3:34 PM on September 7, 2017 [25 favorites]

Calling it the World's Most Perfect Food is like saying that Ranch dressing is the World's Most Perfect Beverage.

How, um. How are you ingesting it?
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:40 PM on September 7, 2017 [10 favorites]

Fondue 4EVA
posted by grumpybear69 at 3:40 PM on September 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

like the majority of the culinary gutter known as "Tex-Mex" -

Are you really using a light-hearted post about cheese dip to erase the history of the chili queens of San Antonio?

The saga of the chili queens goes back nearly 200 years. Some kitchens are hidden by place, some by time. If you want to see remarkable images of the plazas of San Antonio and the women who fed and tended their families and communities for generations, take a look at the small sampling we have on this page. The makeshift tables, the fires and pots of chili, the coffee and tamales, the lanterns, and the crowds of San Antonians of every stripe — businessmen, soldiers, cowboys, families, Anglos, Tejanos and the singers and troubadours who filled the night with music. These photographs and far more are from the vast collection at the University of Texas Institute for Texan Cultures in Austin. Go visit their collection and if you’re lucky, Tom Shelton, their amazing photo archivist, will be there and can tell you the stories behind the images.

Jesus Christ. You just called an entire culture's food gutter food, worse than prison food, trashy, and akin to boxed macaroni and cheese.
posted by Room 641-A at 3:42 PM on September 7, 2017 [73 favorites]

I mean, fuck, if you really need to take a shit, the AV Club has a new article out about Guy Fieri; I'm sure someone will post it soon.
posted by Room 641-A at 3:47 PM on September 7, 2017 [13 favorites]

Yeah I've got some sympathy for food pedantry and the irritation that can result from calling Tex-Mex "Mexican".

But Tex-Mex is a totally valid cuisine and can be delicious. There's no call to crap all over a centuries old food style.
posted by sotonohito at 3:50 PM on September 7, 2017 [8 favorites]

There was recently a piece in the Daily Texan (UT Austin's newspaper) trashing Tex-Mex that didn't go over very well either.
posted by katemonster at 3:59 PM on September 7, 2017 [3 favorites]

About 10 or 15 years ago I was in a taqueria in East Austin (probably not there anymore) sitting next to a friend's brother who was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. He asked for queso and the non-English speaking waitress gave him a puzzled look but he repeated the queso request. After the plates came out, and everyone else started on their al pastor or birria tacos, all this poor kid could do was stare at his plate of grated cold cheese wondering where he had gone wrong.
posted by ch3ch2oh at 4:01 PM on September 7, 2017 [13 favorites]

Maybe he thought he was at Chuy's!
posted by Room 641-A at 4:03 PM on September 7, 2017

> ...trashy comfort food - on the level of boxed mac-and-cheese, perhaps...

Be aware that's also some dangerous turf you're crossing.
posted by ardgedee at 4:05 PM on September 7, 2017 [6 favorites]

> Also, Tex-Mex isn't imitation Mexican food, it's its own thing!

Meetup at Chuy's!
posted by research monkey at 4:05 PM on September 7, 2017 [6 favorites]

The 'queso flameado' at the old Ninfa's on Navigation would be my vote. It was white cheese (ranchero? asadero?) mixed with sausage or mushrooms and was guaranteed to kill you with heart disease after you ate it twice. The old Velveeta and Pace picante is cheap by comparison.
posted by Bee'sWing at 4:06 PM on September 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

omg research monkey, I didn't even realize there was a Chuy's in North Carolina! Let's do it!
posted by aka burlap at 4:15 PM on September 7, 2017

Calling it the World's Most Perfect Food is like saying that Ranch dressing is the World's Most Perfect Beverage.

This is a tautology.
posted by vorpal bunny at 4:16 PM on September 7, 2017 [4 favorites]

I think the current version of Chuy's (which I remember from school days on Riverside in Austin) serves ranch dressing as one of their salsa choices. This is communism.
posted by Bee'sWing at 4:35 PM on September 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

One of my first meals in Austin was queso at Magnolia Cafe. I hate melty cheese; I love queso. I have no idea how that works, but there it is.
posted by phooky at 5:43 PM on September 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

I was landing in the Dallas airport when the woman next to me started the small talk. As a native of the Southwest, I asked if there were any good places to get green chile in DFW. She said as far as she knew they just made it the "traditional" way. America, that kidney bean and ground beef stuff is all well and good, but you DO NOT want to go down that road with me.

Pretty big fan of the norteño versions of queso fundido I've had.
posted by aspersioncast at 6:04 PM on September 7, 2017

I think the current version of Chuy's (which I remember from school days on Riverside in Austin) serves ranch dressing as one of their salsa choices. This is communism.

"Creamy Jalapeno"
posted by RustyBrooks at 6:32 PM on September 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

I literally have a bowl of Ro*Tel queso in my fridge right now. I also live in the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex so this is kind of my jam.

Ro*Tel queso is amazing, because it is so so so easy to make but still tastes awesome. Even more awseome, however, is getting to try all the different Quesos and Fundidos at restaurants around town.
posted by Doleful Creature at 6:38 PM on September 7, 2017 [5 favorites]

Also to prove my bona fides:

How to get good queso
posted by Doleful Creature at 6:42 PM on September 7, 2017 [3 favorites]

I have never had queso. Does anyone have a favorite recipe for making it at home? (I am not trying to start a fight. I just like cheese.)
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:56 PM on September 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

Me and my bud's go to after drinking schiltz malt "baby bulls" was a large queso and six flour tortillas each at the Rosa's drive thru.
posted by shockingbluamp at 6:58 PM on September 7, 2017

Well, there's a recipe on the back of a can of Ro-tel tomatoes. It's probably as good of a place to start as anything. I've made it a few times more "authentically" but it's more trouble. I live in Texas so if I want good queso I can go literally anywhere. If I make it at home it's usually gonna be Rotel/Velveeta.
posted by RustyBrooks at 7:00 PM on September 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

The more-authentic-than-thou stuff about Mexican food in particular is always a bit silly, because cheese is amazing, but it's totally a white people thing. Something like half the Hispanic population is lactose intolerant. Most of the Mexican side of my family barely touches the stuff. It didn't exist at all in Mexican cuisine until the Spanish showed up, and "drown everything in cheese" is still not generally the way that things work. But cheese is incredibly tasty. If you can eat cheese in quantity, go ahead! It doesn't actually matter where it was invented!

I do think the Rotel and Velveeta version does in fact bear plenty of resemblance to boxed mac and cheese as food decisions go, but I find it weird how judgmental people are about things which are traditionally a sort of working-class quick-and-easy food choice. Like you're not allowed to enjoy melted cheese if you didn't put enough effort into the preparation? I dunno.
posted by Sequence at 7:01 PM on September 7, 2017 [11 favorites]

I feel like I should post an askme instead but if anyone feels like answering this:

If I want to try queso here in Australia, what's a recipe I could use that doesn't rely on things that I'm unlikely to be able to get hold of? Or is that not possible? E.g. I'm pretty hazy on Velveeta. I can get what I think you call "Kraft Singles" - is that the same thing? Or something like this? And are those Rotel things basically just canned diced tomatoes? Because I can get those. Or if I want to try to make something less Tex-Mex-y, what sort of cheeses can I use that are likely to be available if I don't have access to Mexican foods specifically (I have a wide range of options for interesting cheeses from Western Europe, Turkey, Russia, or the Middle East, on the other hand).

I made this cheese sauce/dip once and I was really not a fan, on the other hand, so if queso is anything like that, maybe it's an acquired taste you had to grow up with.
posted by lollusc at 7:05 PM on September 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

Ro-tel is tomatoes plus some kind of chili peppers, so it's a little spicy. Velveeta is not unlike american singles but I'm not sure they're the exact same things. I'm tempted to send you a care package.
posted by RustyBrooks at 7:10 PM on September 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

Or I could make a single-serving website, pun intended. Like you put in your address and 2 bucks plus shipping and I drop ship a queso kit to your house. I just need a great website name.
posted by RustyBrooks at 7:14 PM on September 7, 2017 [6 favorites]

Does anyone have a favorite recipe for making it at home?

If your grocery stores are anything like mine, go to the salsa shelves and look for the Rotel cans. Get one of those, and one of the Velveeta jars that will definitely be right next to it. Combine all ingredients. Heat, serve, and enjoy. I'm under the impression that this is a standard home preparation method.

That said, I went to Dallas a couple years ago and experienced queso for the first time and had the idea to make it "right," when I got home. Oh boy, did I get lost in the Internet that day! I tried some recipe with Mexican queso (white), it didn't turn out well, and I gave up on it until I got over my retail aversion to Velveeta. It's been trickling back into my consciousness lately though, so I'll have to try to make it again. The big question for me is, though: is this something I need to own a microwave to understand?
posted by rhizome at 7:16 PM on September 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

quesobook?
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:17 PM on September 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

on the level of boxed mac-and-cheese, perhaps

Well now I want to try tex-mex mac and queso, some sort of KDRotelVeeta.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 7:21 PM on September 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

Well now I want to try tex-mex mac and queso, some sort of KDRotelVeeta.

This might actually be good as a baked mac and cheese, with a crust
posted by RustyBrooks at 7:30 PM on September 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

Velveeta makes a pretty good shitty queso, but if you can't get said "whey-based pasteurized processed cheese food" in your locale, queso is effectively nacho cheese with diced hot peppers and maybe seasoned beef. You'll do fine with some home-shredded cheese (pre-shredded may have baking powder to prevent clumping), sodium citrate, and the peppers. Melt, mix, and enjoy!
posted by hwyengr at 7:37 PM on September 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

Or I could make a single-serving website, pun intended. Like you put in your address and 2 bucks plus shipping and I drop ship a queso kit to your house

That's a great plan in theory and I would subscribe to that so hard were it not for the fact that "plus shipping" to Australia = approximately $30-40. Also, food items like cheese are likely to get confiscated at the border.
posted by lollusc at 7:41 PM on September 7, 2017

Well now I want to try tex-mex mac and queso, some sort of KDRotelVeeta.

At that point you might as well put it in a tater-tot shell and have Greasy Honky Pie.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:49 PM on September 7, 2017 [5 favorites]

The corpse in the library if you want the kind of Mexican queso dip served at every single Mexican restaurant, then you want something like the recipe I used to make when I worked at one of those Mexican restaurants. Keep in mind the recipe below is aimed at making a large quantity of queso in a pot most people could (uncomfortably) sit in and which I tended to by standing on a step-stool and stirring with a wooden paddle the size of a cricket bat. You may not want several gallons of queso all at once, so adjust your technique accordingly.

Get a big block of Mexican melting cheese, preferably asadero or chihuahua, but oaxaca is fine as well. You may also find a cheese labeled as "quesadilla," which is also fine. You may even just find generic "Mexican melting cheese." Just avoid queso cotija or fresco, as those don't really melt.

Barring access to Mexican cheeses, you can use monterey jack, a mild white cheddar, or some combination of the two.

Get a big thick pot, bigger than you think you'd need. Start heating up some whole milk on low-ish to medium heat. You don't want any boiling or bubbling; you just want it hot enough to melt the cheese. Some people melt the cheese in half-and-half, but I find the end product of that makes me feel my arteries hardening. At home, I usually use a base of whole milk and add half-and-half to taste/consistency.

While the milk/cream is heating, cut the cheese. Then, once you are done making fart jokes, chop the cheese in chunks. Add some of these to liquid and stir. Do not stop stirring. Do not ever stop stirring. If you stop stirring you will end up with a burned dairy horror on the bottom of your pot that you will have to chisel off if you ever want to use that pot again.

Or just do all of this in a double-boiler. Whatever, I'm not the boss of you.

Once the first handful of cheese you added to the liquid is melted, add some more. Again, don't stop stirring. Continue this process until you reach the desired consistency. What is that consistency you ask? Well keep in mind that the queso will thicken as it cools, so fresh on the stovetop it should still be pretty liquid-y. Dip a tortilla chip in and pull it out. Does the queso coat the chip, but still run off freely and smoothly, leaving a sort of cheese glaze behind? Yes? Good.

Of course, you're not really eating queso if you haven't added any chilis to the mix. The easiest way to do this is just buy a jar of pickled sliced jalapeños and throw the desired amount into the liquid as it heats up. Capsicum is fat-soluble, so the spicy goodness will spread throughout the dip as you stir and do not ever stop stirring.

Options that are more rico suave are to use fresh jalapeños or serranos. You can use something like poblanos for a (much) milder taste, or use smoked poblanos or chipotles for something a little different. In a pinch, you can also just throw in some dried guajillos or pasillas for some heat and flavor. Love/tolerance of spice level tends to be very personal and I'm not certain where you stand on it. Particularly considering that you've never had queso and have therefore just slid over into my universe from a (sin queso and therefore not as good) parallel dimension, I'd hate to make this decision for you.

go to the salsa shelves and look for the Rotel cans. Get one of those, and one of the Velveeta jars that will definitely be right next to it. Combine all ingredients

I mean, yeah, you can do this and it is a thing that is good in its own way, but if you told me you had made queso and then served me this, I'd be pretty disappointed.
posted by Panjandrum at 8:08 PM on September 7, 2017 [47 favorites]

Also to prove my bona fides:

How to get good queso
posted by Doleful Creature at 9:42 PM on September 7 [2 favorites −] Favorite added! [!]

Ha, Doleful Creature, that old comment of yours has been in my head for years but I had lost track of where I heard it!
posted by aka burlap at 8:13 PM on September 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

At that point you might as well put it in a tater-tot shell and have Greasy Honky Pie.

Correct.
posted by aka burlap at 8:14 PM on September 7, 2017

A few months back, my wife got back from a trip to Houston and was utterly fascinated by her first exposure to queso. I turned to my Texan friends and said "so if I wanted to make queso in a way that didn't involve the words 'rotel' and 'velveeta' how would you do it." After a few puzzled looks the suggestion was to go to HEB and buy a can of tomatoes and chiles and a block of melting cheese food.

My friends were evidently not amused. :)
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:30 PM on September 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

I made this cheese sauce/dip once and I was really not a fan, on the other hand, so if queso is anything like that, maybe it's an acquired taste you had to grow up with

Oh, I don't think this will be your thing, then, really. Maybe this will be more to your liking. I've mentioned this before in recipe threads, but one of the most requested dishes I make is this cream cheese dip, which is in the same family, but not really a queso blanco:

All quantities to taste

1 or 2 blocks cream cheese, softened. Blocks only, preferably full fat because why not.
Pace picante sauce - Medium*
Cilantro, chopped w/stems removed

Beat cream cheese a bit and then add Pace until you get a taste and consistency you like. Use a paddle attachment or beat by hand for denser texture, food processor or blender for slightly lighter texture. Mix in cilantro to taste. Chill to let flavors blend or shove it in your mouth immediately.

People go ape shit for this; it's a recipe I inherited when I became a Whole Foods cheese buyer in Texas. (Yes, Pace is clean.) I used to make it in the Hobart-size batches and it flew off the shelf.

Three simple ingredients. I want some right now!

*Do not substitute fresh salsa; there is way too much water. You can substitute any bottled salsa or picante of similar consistency.
posted by Room 641-A at 10:47 PM on September 7, 2017 [7 favorites]

I'm just here to say that when I learned Chipotle in my area had queso I went THAT NIGHT to try it.

Stupidly disappointing. Insipid, soulless, dull, and weirdly grainy.

Then I found out Del Taco had introduced queso as well and I went THAT DAY and tried it.

BETTER. Clearly made with the "whey-based pasteurized processed cheese food" product and superior in every way because of that.

I don't usually advocate for Velveeta-style cheeses. I have railed against the travesty that is STL-style pizza with "provel" on it, but I love queso dip. I love it to pieces. And I really want some right now.

I bring queso to the party, it's gone in 30 minutes. Doesn't matter how hardline the foodies are. Doesn't matter if everyone's on a low-fat, gluten-free moonbeams-for-breakfast primal diet. That stuff is party GOLD.

My recipe is half a large brick of Velveeta and a can of Ro*Tel. Jar of medium chunky Pace if I can't find Ro*Tel. But I buy Ro*Tel by the crateful so, no problems there.

Also! Ro*Tel is great in any curry where you need tomatoes and chilies together. Someday my kids won't be so scared of spicy food, and on that day I will unleash a million dusty cans of Ro*Tel and laugh like a comic book villain.
posted by offalark at 10:48 PM on September 7, 2017 [8 favorites]

My recipe for real Austin queso is a quarter box of HEB Queso Blanco con Jalapeños with half a jar of Texas Texas! Restaurant style Hot Salsa, 'waved for 3 minutes in a deep bowl, stirred well, and served with El Milagro no salt totopos. Man, if it wasn't 1:30 in the morning I'd make some right now.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 11:36 PM on September 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

Buried the lede; Lisa Fain has a new book coming! And it's all about queso! Her blog Homesick Texan and cookbooks are some of the best writing there is about Texas cuisine, tex-mex especially. (And bless your heart with your "culinary gutter" language; we'll still feed you with love, I hope the bitter taste in your mouth doesn't ruin the pie.)

I show my age by saying my favorite queso was the version at the late-lamented Felix's in Houston. They used an unusual cheese, maybe an aged cheddar, whose main characteristic was it inevitably broke when made into a dip so you got a good inch of chili-red grease floating on top of your bowl of melted cheese. Just stir it in, that's where the flavor is.

A trick for making queso from better cheese than velveeta; sodium citrate. It's one of those molecular bits of magic that makes textures different. In this case a small pinch of powder lets pretty much any cheese hold together when melted, so it doesn't break and get greasy. It really works magic.
posted by Nelson at 2:54 AM on September 8, 2017 [9 favorites]

> Meetup at Chuy's!

Okay!
posted by ardgedee at 4:33 AM on September 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

> sodium citrate

That stuff is a lot of fun but it also adds a tartness to the food that you're going to have to cover by either using a sharp cheese, a noticeable amount of pepper, or such.
posted by ardgedee at 4:35 AM on September 8, 2017

lollusc - I have used kraft singles in a pinch, with salsa or rotel, and it tastes quite similar to the Velveeta result. The beauty of using kraft singles is that you can make just a small amount and see if you like it. I'd probably start with something like 4 singles, chopped up or torn, and maybe a tablespoon of salsa and a tablespoon of milk. Microwave for 30 second bursts, stirring in between, adding more cheese or salsa as needed. (I haven't done this in YEARS so it's an approximation, but it should get you started)

To me cheddar-based dips are quite different, but YMMV.
posted by bunderful at 5:16 AM on September 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

Does it bother anyone else that "queso" just means "cheese," in Spanish? It always feels vaguely insensitive to me, sort of along the lines of "American chop suey." Like, someone came up with a cheap n' nasty cheese dip, appropriated a vaguely relevant Spanish word recognized by most Americans as a label for it, and called it good. It sort of feels like conceptually it reduces a vast swath of Mexican cuisine to a pale yellowish substance that looks a bit like pus. Is it just me?
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 5:20 AM on September 8, 2017

Well, "salsa" just means "sauce" and "scampi" means "shrimp" and so forth. One I find funny is the english word "cookies" which just means "thing you cooked"

Anyway the actual name is "chili con queso" or "peppers with cheese" which seems perfectly fine. "queso" is just short hand.
posted by RustyBrooks at 6:01 AM on September 8, 2017 [3 favorites]

(it can also be called queso fundido which means "melted cheese" which is pretty much what it is)
posted by RustyBrooks at 6:24 AM on September 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

Mrs. Jerkwater is from El Paso, and one of the delights of visiting the in-laws was the Great Queso Tour. Every restaurant there does it differently, and, by the Eyebrows of Peter Gallagher, I swore I would try them all. Totally worth it.

A particular favorite of mine was Chope's in Las Cruces, which was at least fifty percent chiles. Not spicy ones - they were probably Hatch greens. Oh man, so good. The cheese base was white and I think cheddary, but I expect to be wrong about that. Holy shit, dude, it was glorious.

The Velveeta-and-RoTel homemade version is glorious in its own way. So awful, yet so wonderful. No Super Bowl is complete without it.

One time we made chile con queso with white cheddar and I swear I saw the face of God as I ate.

Now if you will excuse me, I must stare into the middle distance and fantasize about cheese.
posted by Harvey Jerkwater at 6:28 AM on September 8, 2017 [3 favorites]

get some sodium citrate, use that to form an emulsion of real cheese that is melted, add good salsa.

Its still essentially the same thing as Velveeta + Rotel, but with tastier inputs.
posted by JPD at 6:29 AM on September 8, 2017

I think the current version of Chuy's (which I remember from school days on Riverside in Austin) serves ranch dressing as one of their salsa choices.

They've done so for at least 20 years, but ranch is only one of the ingredients, alongside jalapeño and cilantro at least. Visiting Houston expats used to make me get it by the quart to put on ice for their plane trips home. We've all tried to recreate it, but we just can't get the spices right!

This is communism.

Well, there is an analogy which leaps to mind.
posted by roystgnr at 6:59 AM on September 8, 2017

Looking at these new Chuy's outposts, they seems like they've lost their cool funky designs? I was just going through old photos of mine from Austin and Dallas and these don't seem nearly as cool.

When I lived in Houston my mom came to visit, and we took a road trip to Austin to meet some friends. We went to Chuy's and got my mom tipsy on margaritas. She never acquired much of a taste for Meixan food, but she loved the queso. Years later she called me up, very excited, to tell me that the place that the Bush twins for busted for drinking was Chuy s.

I'll paraphrase one of my besties, a 2nd generation Mexican-American: white people really care about how authentic their tacos are.
posted by Room 641-A at 7:23 AM on September 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

I just ordered some sodium citrate, I'll post pix and a report after it arrives.
posted by sotonohito at 8:28 AM on September 8, 2017 [3 favorites]

Nachostoday.com
posted by Night_owl at 11:28 AM on September 8, 2017

I just ordered some sodium citrate, I'll post pix and a report after it arrives.

I've found the advice to use an immersion blender as not overkill. I think the Modernist Cuisine website actually has a Queso recipe.
posted by JPD at 1:05 PM on September 8, 2017

Nelson and JPD beat me to it - use sodium citrate so you can use real cheese instead of Velveeta. I usually pick up a pre-shredded 'Mexican' cheese blend instead of the pepper jack that Modernist Cuisine recommends. Then, because my family still loves Rotel - I drain the liquid from a can or two of Rotel, adding water to reach the required amount. After the queso reaches the right consistency I stir in the rest of the Rotel.
posted by kreinsch at 9:15 PM on September 8, 2017

And yeah, no need for immersion blender. I just use a whisk.
posted by kreinsch at 11:55 PM on September 8, 2017

Room 641-A Chili Queens

That was a wonderful story, thanks for posting
posted by james33 at 6:28 AM on September 9, 2017 [1 favorite]

Does it bother anyone else that "queso" just means "cheese," in Spanish? ... along the lines of "American chop suey."

Yup, that's because queso is a similar cultural syncreticism as chop suey. Tex Mex ain't authentic Mexican, and it sure isn't Spanish food. It's Tex Mex, an American food with Mexican flavors and influence, and it is delicious. I mean you're eating a giant bowl of cheese, what could be less traditional-native than that?

What bugs me is the proper name is "chile con queso" or "chili con queso". But it's much more "queso con chili". I've had real "chile con.." dishes, like New Mexico green chile stew. They are great. Fruit stew with lots of chiles, then a bit of meat and posole and onion for flavoring and variety. Queso dip is primarily cheese, so the shortened name is sort of coming full circle IMHO.
posted by Nelson at 7:04 AM on September 9, 2017 [2 favorites]

nachostoday.com/yourstomorrow
That's the order page.
posted by Night_owl at 7:59 AM on September 11, 2017

Stupidly disappointing. Insipid, soulless, dull, and weirdly grainy.

Pretty much everyone agrees that Chipotle's queso sucks.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 3:21 PM on September 17, 2017

Well I'm sorry but Chipotle's everything sucks.
posted by rhizome at 6:16 PM on September 17, 2017

Why It’s A Problem For Chipotle That No One Wants Its Queso

Negative social media reactions don’t always hurt a product’s sales, but in the case of Chipotle’s new queso dip, it appears that no one is rushing out to try the menu addition — and those who do purchase the queso may be taking away from sales of other items on the Chipotle menu.

posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:10 PM on October 1, 2017

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