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Queso Fundido with Chorizo
A skillet of melted Mexican cheeses seasoned with peppers, onions, and spicy Mexican chorizo sausage and served with hot tortillas or chips.
The perfect Mexican appetizer!
If you really want to wow your people, serve them a big dish of queso fundido. It is a famous Mexican appetizer for good reason. How do you go wrong with ooey gooey melted cheese baked up in a skillet? You don’t. It’s perfection.
Since I grew up with five brothers who are all very passionate about food, we love to go out to eat together. Mexican is usually at the top of our list and you better believe that if queso fundido is on the menu, we are ordering it. It is the most flavor-packed appetizer!
So I wanted to figure out how to make it at home. It’s all about the combination of Mexican cheeses melted together with spicy chorizo, onion, and peppers. The key is to melt the cheese without it turning rubbery. I found that by baking it in a hot oven in a roasting pan of simmering water, it cooks it low and slow and gets a perfect melt.
What is Chorizo? Mexican Chorizo is generously seasoned ground pork that is full of Mexican spices and flavor. It can be found in the meat department of your local grocery store.
Choosing the right cheese is highly important as you want to find cheeses that melt well. I prefer to use a combination of Monterey or Pepper Jack (the latter gives more spice) and queso asadero (also known as queso quesadilla). You can also use oaxaca cheese.
The key is to serve this nice and hot so the cheese stays melted. Serve with fresh corn or flour tortillas or tortilla chips. For a bit of freshness, top with fresh cilantro and finely diced tomatoes.
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Queso Fundido with Chorizo
Ingredients
- 1 Tablespoon Salted Butter
- 1/2 Onion (finely diced)
- 1 Jalapeno (finely diced)
- 8 ounces Mexican Chorizo (ground)
- 2 cups Queso Asadero (quesadilla) or Oaxaca (grated)
- 2 cups Pepper Jack or Monterey Jack Cheese (grated)
Garnish:
- Fresh Cilantro
- Tomatoes
- Tortilla Chips or Tortillas
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Heat cast iron skillet over medium heat. Add butter and let sizzle. Add onions and cook until starting to soften, about 5-6 minutes, stirring often. Stir in jalapenos and cook for 2 minutes longer.
- Stir in chorizo, breaking it into small pieces with a wooden spoon as it cooks. May want to bring it to medium-high heat. Cook until chorizo is completely cooked through, about 6-7 minutes. Drain the grease off of the chorizo by placing it on a paper-towel-lined plate.
- After the grease has been drained, return chorizo to skillet (reserving a small amount of chorizo to garnish the top after cooking) and begin to add the cheese. Let the cheese melt for 1-2 minutes.
- Fill a roasting pan or baking dish halfway up with hot water. Place the skillet inside of the water bath and place in the oven. Bake until the cheese is melted and gooey, about 18-22 minutes. Serve immediately with tortillas or chips.
- Garnish with fresh cilantro and remaining chorizo.
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Followed your directions to a T but did not include jalapeño. It was delish! Heated it for 18 minutes in the water bath and we ate it with flour tortillas. It was gone so quickly it didn’t really have time to cool down! Will be making it again.
I’m planning on making this for a get together for Superbowl. Is there a way I could make this in the instant pot?
You could use the brown or sauté feature to do the onion and chorizo. Adding the cheese for the initial melting should be ok, but where you may run into issue is getting it all to melt together and heat through. (The step you do in the oven.) I would use the slow cooker option to do it, not the pressure cooking settings. Might also experiment with a water bath inside the instant pot. Water in the pot and cheese mixture in another dish in the water. You also need to eat it pretty quickly, it’s not something that can sit around like a traditional “queso” type dip. Works best with taking a scoop with a fork and eating it inside a tortilla. Hard to dip chips in it.
I made this last nite with the suggested ingredients, following every step. One minute after we took the pan out of the oven, it was just hot solidified cheese. It tasted good, but it was not a “dip” in any sense. we had to break off pieces of stretchy cheese and lay it on chips.
425 is way too high. More like 350
Whoa! Yum! Just found your site. Gorgeous Recipes.
Melissa, this was a delicious recipe!! Thank you for “being at” our Super Bowl afternoon. 🙂