Love simple recipes? How about simple recipes that are awesome? Then I’ve got the perfect one for you! Green Chile Queso Fundido…basically cheese & chile heated together in a skillet. That’s it. There’s a little more to it than that, but you get the general idea. This dish works as a quick and easy appetizer, or a light dinner when paired with fresh tortillas and something off the grill. Let’s get into it.
What is Queso Fundido?
How’s this green chile queso fundido different than regular queso? It’s the cheese. Fundido is made with what I like to call a “squeaky” cheese. You can use Oaxaca (preferred), or even jack or mozzarella cheese. Oaxaca melts great and then as it cools, it gets even better, forming semi solid, semi melted chunks of cheese that can be eaten in little cheesy slabs.
Rather than stirring everything together to achieve an amalgamation of ingredients, as in traditional queso, the ingredients are minimal and layered into a skillet and heated together. Thicker than queso, it’s best to spoon out fundido onto a tortilla chip or tortilla. As it cools, it will begin to solidify, but this only makes it better and easier to eat.
There are several restaurants that serve it in Las Cruces (where I grew up) and a few here in Albuquerque. They’ll sometimes add a layer of chorizo to it, but in its simplest form, it’s just chile and cheese. What are we waiting for? Let’s make some Green Chile Queso Fundido!
Green Chile Queso Fundido
Ingredients
2 packages Oaxaca cheese (10oz each)
8oz hot green chile (clean, chopped & drained)
AlbuKirky Seasoning’s Green Chile Rub
1 tablespoon olive oil
Instructions
- Light the grill or preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Next, oil a cast iron skillet with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. The skillet pictured is approximately 8 inches.
- Then cut the Oaxaca cheese into 1″ cubes. Add half of the cubed cheese to the bottom of the skillet in an even layer.
- Sprinkle the cubed cheese with AlbuKirky Seasonings Green Chile Rub.
- Add the chopped green chile to the skillet.
- Top with the remainder of the cubed Oaxaca cheese.
- Sprinkle with more Green Chile Rub.
- Place the skillet on the grill or in the preheated oven and bake until cheese is completely melted. Approximately 15-20 minutes.
- Serve with tortilla chips, or fresh corn or flour tortillas. You can find our Bacon Fat Flour Tortilla Recipe HERE. Enjoy!
AlbuKirky Seasonings Green Chile Rub is great on so many things, but particularly wonderful in Green Chile Queso Fundido! Let us know if you try this recipe or one of the others on our blog. We love to hear from you!
Stock up on our rubs, sauces and jellies at AlbuKirkySeasonings.com! Keep up with what we’re cooking on our Facebook and Instagram pages. See you next time!
This looks so good!! I’m going to look for that cheese.
Queso Fundido is a favorite of mine, but anyone who has had it has experienced the joyous first couple of melty goes minutes with tortilla or chips and the last agonizing moments of trying to get the hardened cheese scraped out after minutes of cooling down. The solution is to use Sodium Citrate, a natural occurring salt from citrus. Sodium Citrate interacts with clumping protein molecules in aging cheese and gets them to loosen up and create a long lasting smooth cheese dip.
Yes, that’s a great point! We actually have some sodium citrate sitting in the pantry right now for strategic mac-n-cheese purposes. I have to be honest though, I kind of like the texture of the Oaxaca cheese when it starts to cool and get a little rubbery. However, we’ll happily give the sodium citrate a try in the future. Thanks for the suggestion!
I won’t lie… I too like the end game when its a bit crusty and rubbery. It works great for smaller batches where it will be gone before it gets too cold. For parties and larger batches the Sodium Citrate helps stay scoopable for the life of the party. Even better over a small butane hotplate.