It’s a sad reality for us Albuquerque residents that we don’t have any professional sports teams. I think this requires us to put in a little extra effort to make our parties the most fun . . . with some queso, of course!
We may be too small for an NFL franchise, but if there’s one thing I know about Burquenos, it’s that we can party with the best of ‘em.
So let’s get our queso on for this weekend’s big event. Because football and cheese. Can you really have one without the other?
It is way easy to make queso out of the big orange block of “cheese” that comes in the cardboard box and doesn’t even require refrigeration. However, I am concerned that the same ingredients in that big orange block also make car tires and rat poison (or something else equally terrifying).
So I decided to take a stab at making the delicious cheese concoction known as queso with real food.
Begin by browning 1 pound of ground beef. I suppose you could use ground turkey, but I don’t think we’re going for low-fat here. Low carb? Totally. Gluten-free? Yep. So basically healthy. Queso is a healthy food.
Drain the ground beef and place it in a crock pot.
Add a block of cream cheese, a cup of sour cream, and a can of diced tomatoes with green chile such as Rotel.
Then add a pound of shredded Monterey Jack cheese to the crock-pot. I have found that for this recipe you want to buy a block of cheese and shred it yourself at home. When I’ve used pre-shredded cheese, it has not melted well because of the cornstarch or potato starch coating on it.
Let all this melt into cheesy goodness. Serve with tortilla chips and celery sticks. Only eat the queso with celery sticks to fool yourself into thinking you’ve made it through the Superbowl and stayed on your diet. Nothin’ like willpower.
Even though it is an insane amount of cheese, you can double this recipe to fill up a whole crock-pot. You may consider doing this if your husband invites the man standing in line next to him at the coffee shop, a family who just moved to town (they only have five kids…no big), his new best friend, the bag boy at Smith’s, and a homeless guy to your house to share in the queso. Hypothetically, of course.
May your football team win, the commercials be funny, and your queso be hot.
Queso Recipe
1 lb. ground beef, browned and drained
1 block cream cheese
1 cup sour cream
1 lb. grated Monterey Jack cheese
1 can diced tomatoes and green chile (such as Rotel)
Combine all in a crock-pot on low heat. Warm until thoroughly melted.
Serve with tortilla chips and celery sticks.
