We love this homemade queso recipe with cheese, milk, diced green chiles, and tangy pickled jalapeños. It’s super creamy, incredibly delicious, and perfect for dipping your favorite chips or veggies!
I get so excited about this easy queso dip. It’s super creamy and perfectly cheesy, and I love the tangy pop of heat from pickled jalapeños (so good!). I love serving this queso with homemade tortilla chips, and if you want to get fancy, set out a couple more homemade dips like guacamole or this easy salsa!
This queso has milk and cheese. If you want a dairy-free dip, I highly recommend our vegan queso made with cashews. It’s surprisingly delicious!
Key Ingredients
- Cheese: The cheese you choose for queso is up to you. For the smoothest dip that resembles jarred, store-bought queso, use half cheddar or Monterey Jack and half American cheese (the slices or ask the deli counter to give you a slab from the block of the unsliced cheese, and then grate it yourself). If you don’t want to use American cheese, you can achieve the same creamy, stabilized texture by adding cream cheese (which also has stabilizers). Use your favorite type of cheese, and then add cream cheese.
- Onion, Garlic, and Cumin: These make the dip tastes incredible. The onion becomes sweet after cooking it in a bit of butter, and the cumin adds a hint of smoky spice.
- Milk: I use whole milk when making queso dip. It’s creamy and delicious.
- Cornstarch: This helps to thicken our queso. I whisk it with cold milk and add it to my cheese sauce. As the sauce comes to a simmer, it thickens nicely.
- Chiles: I use the chopped green chilies sold in small cans. You can usually find hot or mild. Both work in this recipe. It just depends on how spicy you’d like your queso. I also add chopped pickled jalapeños, which add a nice pop of flavor and spice. For a sweet heat, you can swap the pickled jalapeños for candied jalapeños aka cowboy candy.
How to Make Queso
Queso is easy to make at home and so incredibly delicious. You’ll start by cooking onions, garlic, cumin, and a bit of salt in some butter. We want the onions to soften and become sweet.
Next, pour in most of the milk and bring it to a gentle simmer. At that point, you can whisk in a bit more milk mixed with cornstarch. As the cornstarch heats up, it thickens the milk in the saucepan, helping you achieve that perfect queso consistency.
Now it’s time for the cheese. I talked about this above, but since the cheese really does have a huge impact on how well this recipe turns out, let’s review it quickly.
For the meltiest, creamiest queso, use some American cheese. The individually wrapped slices or the block cheese from the deli are perfect for this recipe. They have stabilizers added, which keep our queso super smooth and creamy. If you don’t have American cheese, you can use something else (like cheddar or Monterey Jack) and then swirl in a bit of cream cheese, which, like the American cheese, also has stabilizers added.
Once your cheese melts into the thickened milk mixture, add some heat with diced green chilies and jalapeños. Add as much or as little as you like! And that’s it: incredibly delicious creamy queso dip ready for dipping!
Easy Queso
- PREP
- COOK
- TOTAL
I love this homemade queso made with cheese, milk, chiles, and pickled jalapeños. For the smoothest queso, use some American cheese. Or skip the American cheese and swirl in a bit of cream cheese instead. Read why in the article above. If you don’t like the idea of cream cheese or American cheese in your queso, you can still make queso dip! Use any melty cheese, but remember that the dip won’t be as smooth and is best eaten immediately.
Watch Us Make the Recipe
You Will Need
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 small onion, finely chopped
1 small garlic clove, finely minced or grated, optional
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt, plus more to taste
1 cup (236ml) whole milk
1 ½ teaspoons cornstarch
1 ½ cups (170g) Monterey Jack, cheddar, American cheese, or a combination, shredded or torn if using slices, 6 ounces
2 ounces (56g) cream cheese, optional, see notes
1 (4oz) can chopped green chilies, mild or hot
2 tablespoons chopped pickled jalapeño, plus 1/2 tablespoon pickle brine, optional
Homemade tortilla chips, for serving
Directions
1Heat butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the onions, garlic, cumin, and a pinch of salt, then cook until the onions are soft and smell sweet, about 5 minutes.
2Pour in 3/4 cup of the milk. Bring the milk to barely simmering.
3Meanwhile, whisk the remaining 1/4 cup of milk and cornstarch together.
4When the milk is barely simmering, whisk in the milk and cornstarch mixture. Continue to whisk until the milk comes to a low simmer, then simmer for 1 minute. During this time, the milk should thicken enough to coat the back of a spoon.
5Turn the heat to low, and then stir in the cream cheese and the torn or shredded cheese, handful by handful, so that they slowly melt into the sauce.
6When the cheese is completely melted and smooth, remove the saucepan from the heat and add the green chilies, jalapeño (optional), and jalapeño pickle juice (optional). We added all the green chilies, but you can add less; add a tablespoon until you are happy.
7Taste the dip, and then, if the flavor does not pop, adjust with a bit more salt. Serve warm with tortilla chips.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- Cheese: We love the flavor combination of sharp cheddar and a mild melty cheese like Monterey or Pepper Jack, but queso made this way is a bit thicker and slightly less smooth than what comes out of a jar or what you are served at restaurants. For a silky smooth, practically unbreakable queso, swap at least half of the cheese for American cheese (simply tear the slices into small pieces). It is the American cheese that more closely mimics jarred or restaurant-style queso.
- Cream cheese: If you are against American cheese, consider adding the cream cheese suggested in the above recipe. This smooths the sauce out and makes reheating a bit easier. If you do use American cheese, you should not need the cream cheese (unless you want to add even more creamy cheese flavor).
- Reheating queso: Warm the queso slowly in a saucepan over low heat on the stove. Reheating too quickly can cause the dip to break on you (which means some of the fat separates). Using American cheese or cream cheese is a good fail-safe against the queso breaking.
- The nutrition facts provided below are estimates.
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Delicious! We didn’t have a jar of jalapenos but did add the full 4oz can of diced green chilies and a slosh of the juice from a jar of spicy garlic pickles to make up for the lack of jalapeno pickle juice. Tasted great!!
I love the simplicity of your recipes and how they are presented in such a orderly way and always think – Wow, these guys are so fab! For the queso dip, I can share a tip that I discovered when I got grainy/separated sauces myself. Add the cheese 2 minutes after the taking the pot off the flame. To reheat, make sure it doesn’t reach past 85°C. The cheese remains creamy and well incorporated
Ingredients call for a small clove of garlic. No where in the recipe does it say to add the garlic…MCP
This sounds exactly what I want to make for a dinner party, but I would need to make it early and warm it up. Would this work, and if so, how would I warm it up?
Warm the queso slowly in a saucepan on the stove. Reheating too quickly can cause the dip to break on you (which will mean some of the fat separates). Using American cheese or the cream cheese (tip shared in the recipe) is a good fail-safe against the queso breaking.