Well, I guess now I *have* to have a party because I’ve got a big vat of Spicy Chorizo Cheese Dip and I definitely can’t be left alone in a room with it. I can’t be trusted with this much cheesy goodness. 😳 But if you are going to have a party, like say for football, Halloween, or any other event, this Spicy Chorizo Cheese Dip is totally the way to go! You only need 5 ingredients and there is no American cheese, Velveeta, or “cheese product” involved. 👏
P.S. It’s not intentional that half the pictures of this recipe are of me scooping it up with a chip. I literally couldn’t stop.
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It’s all about the Chorizo…
The chorizo is the magic ingredient in this cheese dip, so DON’T leave it out. Chorizo is packed with spices, which will automatically season the entire batch of cheese dip. Make sure you buy Mexican chorizo, which is a fresh ground sausage, not Spanish chorizo, which is a hard cured sausage.
I prefer Johnsonville brand chorizo because it’s not as fatty or greasy as some other brands, and you can find it in most major grocery stores. It does come in both links and loose ground meat, so if you get links just slice the casing open and empty the ground meat into your skillet.
Keep your Cheese Dip Warm
You’ll probably want to keep your Spicy Chorizo Cheese Dip warm so that it stays creamy for your party guests, so I did a little testing. My slow cooker was a bit too large for this batch size, so I tested it in my 2 qt rice cooker on the “warm” setting. It kept the cheese dip creamy and warm for a whole hour, stirring only occasionally, and the dip never clumped up or broke down. It probably would have lasted longer, but I had things to do, places to go, people to see, and I had to end the experiment.
Reheating the Cheese Dip
I also tested reheating the Spicy Chorizo Cheese Dip and it performed well! I spooned about a half cup into a small bowl and microwaved on high for 30 seconds, then stirred, microwaved for about 15 seconds more, and then it was melty, cheesy perfection. No clumping, no separating, just creamy goodness!
Goes great with: Fire Roasted Salsa, Best Ever Avocado Dip, Homemade Baked Tortilla Chips
Spicy Chorizo Cheese Dip
Servings 6 1/2 cup eachIngredients
- 1/2 lb. Mexican chorizo ($2.00)
- 1 10oz. can diced tomatoes with green chiles (like Rotel) ($0.49)
- 1 12oz. can evaporated milk ($0.65)
- 12 oz. Monterey jack cheese*, shredded ($3.00)
- 3 green onions (garnish) ($0.25)
Instructions
- Brown the chorizo in a skillet over medium heat until it is slightly crispy on the edges. If your chorizo is very fatty, drain some of it off before the next step (leave a couple of tablespoons of fat in the skillet).
- Drain the diced tomatoes with green chiles, then add it to the skillet with the chorizo, and continue to stir and cook until most of the moisture from the canned tomatoes has evaporated away.
- Pour the evaporated milk into the skillet. Stir and cook until heated through.
- Turn the heat under the skillet down to low. Begin adding the cheese, one handful at a time, stirring until it is fully melted in before adding the next handful.
- Once all the cheese has melted into the dip, turn the heat off. Garnish with sliced green onion and serve!
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Notes
Nutrition
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Scroll down for the step by step photos!
How to Make Chorizo Cheese Dip – Step by Step Photos
If you’re unfamiliar with Mexican chorizo, it’s a heavily spiced ground pork product. Super yummy. I like this brand because it’s a lot less greasy than some others I’ve tried. It comes in both links and loose ground meat, like this. If you get links, just cut open the casing and scoop the meat into your skillet.
Brown 1/2 lb. of the chorizo in a skillet over medium heat until it’s a bit crispy on the edges (you can freeze the rest of the chorizo). If your chorizo is super fatty, you may want to drain some of it off before moving to the next step.
If you’re familiar with Rotel, you can use that, or use a generic version of diced tomatoes with green chiles, like I did. Drain the excess liquid from the can before adding them to the skillet.
Continue to stir and cook the Rotel and chorizo until most of the moisture from the tomatoes has evaporated (another 3-5 minutes).
Add one 12oz. can of evaporated milk to the skillet and allow it to heat through.
Once the liquid is hot, turn the heat under the skillet down to low. Begin adding the 12 oz. of shredded Monterey jack, one handful at a time, stirring until it is fully melted in before adding more. (The liquid looks really orange because the fat from the chorizo is floating on top and it’s orange from all the spices).
Once all the cheese has been melted into the sauce, it will be thick and delicious! Turn the heat off.
Garnish the Spicy Chorizo Cheese Dip with green onions, and serve! (I also reserved a tablespoon or so of the crispy chorizo and used that as garnish.)
You should really specify in the recipe that it needs to be cooled down before adding the cheese. Followed the recipe step by step and the entire thing curdled the moment we started adding the cheese. The whole thing was ruined, all because you lacked in adding that very important piece of information.
I would like to think you had enough common sense to do this.
Tried the recipe out and it came out very gritty. Any thoughts on why?
This can happen if you use pre-shredded bagged cheese or if the temperature was too high!
Maybe include in the recipe to let the temperature drop before adding the cheese. Wasted $30 of food because of this very simple lack of instruction. How stupid.
If I wanted to use 1lb of chorizo, should I double the rest of the ingredients as well?
Yes!
Hey Beth, you got some great coverage on an NPR TV spot here in Boston last week. It came off really well. Short but great.
Great recipe! I have never made queso dip before and it hit the spot. My wife and I love your recipes, they have added so much to our meals.
Yum! I wonder if I could sub heavy cream for the evaporated milk to make this Keto friendly?
It should work, especially since cream has a higher fat content. However, we haven’t tested it. Let us know the results!
I have tried more queso recipes than I can count in the last couple months and this is by far the best!!! The only thing I did different was add a handful of queso quesadilla cheese only because I had some left from the last queso recipe I tried and I used a 4 oz can of fire roasted green chiles (NOT a fan of tomatoes at all). But this is exactly what I was looking for and I may have already eaten about half of it by myself :)
LOVE this recipe! I even made it with dairy free cheese (Moocho fiesta blend) and it came out SO good! Cut up some bell peppers to dip as well as corn chips and it’s a fiesta in my mouth. =D
Just made this and it turned out so good! Thanks for sharing :)
Thank you all for the comments and questions. All of my concerns were addressed. I cheated! I used Velveeta Mexican and Queso Blanco. It was a hit! I made it the night before and reheated it the day of the party. No problem.
Great recipe, super simple. I used soyrizo to mAke it vegetarian and it was perfect. You donโt really need to cook the soyrizo past heating it up and then just add the drained tomatoes and cook to reduce some of the water. This is a keeper. I think you could do some add-ins if you want like roasted hatch peppers. Thanks!
So easy and tasty. I added some taco sauce and used 1/2 mont jack and 1/2 Old El Paso 3 pepper blend (mont jack w/ jalapeno & habanero and cheddar with chipotle peppers). Loved it.
This recipe sounds great, where do you buy Rotel tomatoes at $0.49?
You can purchase them reasonably at a discount grocer or when you buy a larger amount the price can go down.
Very flavorful recipe, but I think I may have kept the heat too high for too long, as the cheese started to curdle onto the chorizo bits, leading to a soupy texture. I plan to remake it because it tastes so good.
Winner! And it feels so much more virtuous than the one with plastic cheese.ย
Was excited to make this recipe, followed the video step by step, but when I started adding the cheese it never combined with the milk and is just melted cheese with chorizo & tomatoes floating in milk. What did I do wrong ๐?
Usually if the cheese is clumping that means there is too much water (the fat in the cheese and water repel each other), so it may be that the tomatoes were not cooked down enough to evaporate most of their water, or did you by chance use regular milk instead of evaporated milk?
Same thing happened to me and Iโm pretty sure itโs cause my temp was too high when I added the cheese. It all seized and was weird. Tried again knowing to keep temp low and it was awesomeย
Whatโs not to love…always a hit…flavorโtha bomb,,โ..very easy to prep…so many variations to,,WONT DISAPPOINT…very addictive …QUESO…RULES!!!!!
Yes! Thank you!
Wonderful recipe but not even close to Seattle prices – I paid triple for each item and shopped at our โKrogerโ owned stores .. aka Fred Meyer. Had to quickly look at the year you posted as I was shocked at those prices. ย
Thanks for the recipe and good laughย
Make sure to buy unsweetened evaporated milk. I bought the wrong one & ruined the flavor. Bummer. But will try to make again soon!
P.S. I only put 2 tbs of chili powder in it. It wasn’t spicy at all. My one year old loved it!
Mike are you a troll or were you really feeding a 1 yr old baby chili n cheese dip…
What’s wrong with feeding this to a 1 year old? My 1 year old and 4 year old love this dip.
The same thing happened to me and we didnt use tomatoes we just used green chilis. It looked all wrong and looked like curdled milk chunks floating.
I made everything from scratch, including the chorizo (with individual spices) and diced tomatoes with jalapenos. One brick of Monterey Jack wasn’t enough…I had to add another brick of mild cheddar. It turned out tasty but it was still pretty runny. It was more like a soup even after draining a lot of fat.
Thinking of making a double batch of this the night before my party, refrigerating it overnight, ย then putting it in a crock pot before the party to warm up. Does this sounds okay? How long before the party should I put it in the crockpot and a what heat setting?
Definitely test a regular sized or even half sized batch before you go for the double batch, to make sure you have the method correct. Unfortunately reheating time can vary with different slow cookers and the size of the batch, so I’m unable to estimate how long it would take to reheat.
Yowzers was this good. Devoured by all the little people in our house, despite many recipe substitutions. I know we were warned against anything but chorizo, but it was a winner with plain old seasoned ground beef – I added some taco-type spices to jazz it up, and subbed regular canned tomatoes for the Rotel. Totally worked!
Can left overs freeze well
I wouldn’t suggest freezing this one.
Does this save well? If I wanted to make this for a party the night before?
It does. I was reheating small portions of mine all week long. :)
This was delicious! I’m a fan of Mexican chorizo and queso so combining the two was perfect. I made this for NYE and I was tempted to eat the whole thing myself! I love that it included real cheese. Definitely putting this one in my regular rotation.
As soon as I saw this, I knew I had to make! I used beef chorizo and HOT/habenro rotel and it was FANTABULOUS!!! My husband and I very much enjoyed this…thanks for sharing!
Hi Beth,
I think this is the first time I’ve watched one of your recipe videos. It is so well presented. The idea of a single burner sitting on the table with the dark backdrop. Fabulous. Combined with the onions and chips. #AwesomeSauce
Already know the recipe will be great. BudgetBytes is my first, and usually only, stop when doing my weekly meal planning.
Thank you, Matt!
Beth from scratch chorizo should be your next BB project, itโs just ground pork/cumin/ground chipotle/ground adobo. Iโm sure you can find those spices in big groceries now :).
extra love from me if you can figure out the ratios to keep the spice mix in the pantry for chorizo type emergencies
Great recipe Beth. Love that you didn’t use Velveeta. (Too many recipes do) Here is another thing you didn’t use – The Microwave. How many cheese dip recipes call for the microwave? (Again, too many) You use the perfect pan – a cast iron fry pan. Thank you for posting a “real ingredient” recipe.
This was SO good. Easy to make and my husband and I enjoyed all through our football watching. We love your recipes and I’m usually cooking one up every week. I never get any complaints if it’s a BudgetBytes meal. I have the Chicken and Dumplings in the slow cooker right now!
Beth. The Chorizo Cheese Dip is on point. It was so good that my sister and I ate the whole pan. It was delicious. Thanks, Beth for the amazing recipe. ๐๐
Just finished making this and it’s great!
As soon as I saw the recipe, I knew I had to give it a go but since I’m dairy free, I changed a few things.
For the cheese:
I used df(All ‘Go Veggie’ brand) cheddar and mozzarella cheese shreds and cheddar slices (next time I’ll only use the cheddar slices as they melted down better)
For the evaporated milk:
I reduced about 24oz. plain almond milk down for 30 mins until it was evap. milk consistency and it reduced down to 8 oz. … after the cheese was added at the end I added more almond milk to thin it out (but next time I think I’ll try cashew milk as it’s a bit creamier)
-Also added a few shakes of salt
I found that with using the df cheese, you have to keep it heated because as soon as it cools down it starts to get a bit rubbery but when it’s reheated it’s fine.
As a previous commenter suggested, I would brown the chorizo just a tad more to get it extra crispy and have that texture contrast.
I also added a 1/2 tsp of white miso with the cheese
I made this tonight and it was excellent – I made it as listed except I used Trader Joe’s soyrizo, since that’s what I had to hand and I didn’t feel like going back out.
The only think I’d do different is give the soyrizo a little more time to crisp on the edges – it did, but I think it would have given a greater texture contrast with more. Otherwise, excellent and I’ll make it again.
Do you think Trader Joe’s soy chorizo would work for this recipe?
Yes, I think that would work great. :)
I made this with the Trader Joe’s soy chorizo as the party host is a vegetarian. It worked fine (and I had it in the crockpot on ‘keep warm’ for ~5 hours and it didn’t break or anything). ย I used ~3/4 of the package and froze the rest to make tacos with laterย
Can you make this with ground beef instead of pork? What are the spices in chorizo that makes it specifically tasty?
You’re on the right track with the fact that you’d need to add the spices back in to make up for the chorizo. I don’t know off hand what spices are used in chorizo, but you could try Googling “chorizo spices” or “chorizo recipe” to see if there are some basic chorizo recipes out there that list the spices.
Oh.My.Lord. ย That is all.
Chorizo is the Kroger Friday freebie this week so I will definitely try this recipe!
That’s what made me want to try this recipe too!
Iโm curious if you know how well it preserves. Iโve made your enchilada sauce recipe in large quantities and sealed it in jam jars (but kept it in the fridge). This seems like a candidate for that, too.ย
[Edited for URL typo correction]
It will probably last about four days in the fridge, but I’m not sure about canning because unfortunately I don’t have any experience with that.
I looked into this. Signs point to no.ย
Bummer! But thanks for following up with what you found. :)
Two supermarkets and one bodega in my local small town community make their own chorizo, all of which are leaner than Johnsonville and vary in flavor and heat. Still, I always drain it on paper towels after cooking and before adding to any recipe–I usually cook up a bunch and keep leftovers in the freezer. I think that it is worth looking at local sources where ever you happen to be and picking the version you like best. It’s nice to have a reliable national brand, but you may be able to do even better with locally ground and seasoned meat. This is a recent thing in my area–for years I froze bulk chorizo to carry home to NC from Texas–and still do that for roasted Hatch chilis. I adore that old Texas fave–melted Velveeta and Rotel, although I always did add diced onion to mine. My DDIL, from Dallas, prefers her queso with sausage and I passed this version to her–after a prolonged and much enjoyed taste test (there’s always chorizo in my freezer just in case a recipe pops up).
Sadly in my province I can’t get mexican Chorizo anywhere. Spanish Chorizo, sure, but not the ground stuff.
However I recently noticed this product on the shelves: http://www.johnsonville.ca/products/TexMex-Ground-Pork.html
I’m not sure if that’s just the same sausage as Johnsonville’s Chorizo, just rebranded for Canada, but it tastes similar enough to Chorizo I’ve had elsewhere that I’m fairly sure it is. And even if it’s not identical it hits all the same notes so I feel pretty confident in using it as a substitute. So take this as a heads up to any rural Canucks reading this, if you can’t get Chorizo at your local grocery keep an eye out for this instead.
Yes, I bet that would work great in this recipe! Thanks for sharing that. I’ve not seen it in stores. :)