Homemade Loaded Queso Dip

During the Fall, our house is full of friends, food, and at least one television airing a football game. Although I’m not a huge fan of football, I love having people in our home! These seasons have taught me how to prep food that nearly everyone enjoys, that is made for gradual munching all afternoon, and – most importantly – that is quick and easy to prepare.

I discovered how amazing homemade queso is last year. My husband specifically requested queso with sausage in it…ummm that probably comes in a jar in the store, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat fake cheese. (Unfortunately, that stems from my childhood days of cheese in a can.) My gut reaction: make it homemade, of course!

Obviously queso is composed of cheese. You can’t go wrong with a base of white cheese (Mozzarella or American), plus a slight kick from Pepperjack cheese. Cream cheese, sour cream, and whole milk make the queso creamier. Is it possible to eat Mexican-American food without Rotel? No, I didn’t think so either. As usual, I dumped in a few spices from my pantry.

My crockpot is quite old-fashioned. I’m not sure exactly how old it is, but it was inherited from my husband’s grandmother. Because of its age, mine takes a while to heat up. I came back every 10 minutes or so to give it a stir until the queso was fully melted. Yours may not take that long if you have a newer model. 

However, this is important, turn it to warm once it’s fully melted, otherwise you will have burned queso on the bottom of your crockpot dish. Plus, it stays warm for the entire football game, just waiting for people to come back and munch.

Once it’s ready, drizzled that loaded queso over nachos, dip tortilla chips into it, scoop it onto enchiladas, or load it onto fresh tacos.