Nacho Cheese Sauce
Homemade Nacho Cheese Sauce is easy to make yourself from scratch, and is the perfect melty sauce to pour over crispy tortilla chips or Homemade French Fries. This is made with only five all-natural ingredients, and takes 10 minutes to make.
My very first experience with nacho cheese sauce was of the Velveeta variety. I was about 8 years old and had no concept of what processed food meant. It was always the default snack at my friend Angelina’s house: a box of Velveeta popped into the microwave, then mixed with a can of rotel.
It was good at the time, but now I generally stay away from things called “processed american cheese product.” It’s perfectly possible to make smooth, creamy nacho cheese with natural ingredients, which is what we work with here.
The 5 Ingredients You’ll Need:
- Butter
- Flour
- Milk
- Cheddar Cheese
- Ground Cayenne pepper
In my recipe testing, I have found no benefit to adding extra ingredients like heavy cream, cream cheese, sour cream, or evaporated milk. So long as you’re not using a reduced fat cheese, the amount of richness from the cheese should be perfect.
While this creamy nacho cheese sauce is a very simple recipe, you can certainly jazz it up with your favorite toppings. You can add tomatoes, jalapeños, scallions, ground beef, and whatever else strikes your fancy.
Serve it alongside some Chicken Wings, Buffalo Chicken Dip, and Soft Pretzels and you have a full spread perfect for game day and having friends over. No need to go to the movie theaters for this delicious snack!
This recipe method takes less than 10 minutes, and riffs on how you’d make a roux and a béchamel sauce for mac and cheese.
Because the ingredients are natural and chemical-free, know that the nacho sauce firms slightly as it cools. It has a luscious, smooth and melty texture as long as it’s warm, but if you let it cool, you’ll need to reheat it to get that flowy texture again. It does reheat just fine though and I’ll include instructions for that after the step-by-step.
Tips for Best Results
Grate the cheese yourself – Nearly all pre-shredded cheese has cellulose or anti-caking agents added to them in order to keep the shreds from sticking together. These are a disaster for your sauce. You must grate a real block of cheddar yourself for a smooth consistency.
Don’t overcook the cheese – Just like when you make mac and cheese, if you overheat the cheese, it will get grainy and have a horrid texture. Add the cheese off the heat and let it melt with the residual heat.
Serve immediately or keep it warm – Because this is made with all-natural ingredients, as the nacho cheese sauce cools, it will lose its melty texture. If you’re not eating it right away, I recommend keeping it warm in a crockpot, a fondue pot, or a saucepan over a warming plate, especially if you’re serving this at a party.
Step by Step Overview:
Start by melting some butter in a skillet over medium heat, either salted or unsalted:
Whisk in an equal amount of flour until combined. This is called a roux, and it will thicken our sauce.
Next whisk in some milk, and season with salt and ground cayenne pepper. The cayenne is subtle and gives a little spice to the cheese, but you can add as much or as little as you prefer.
Also, I recommend using whole milk here, as that milk fat will give more richness than skim.
Once the milk heats through, the mixture should be thick and bubbly.
Now turn off the heat and add freshly grated cheddar. Remember I told you above that freshly grated is important, because pre-shredded cheeses in bags usually have things like powdered cellulose that are there to prevent caking. Those will make your sauce grainy, so make sure you actually buy a block of cheddar and grate it yourself.
Not All Cheddar Is the Same!
Cheddar cheeses vary HUGELY in taste and melt-quality depending on brand.
My absolute favorite cheddar is made by Cracker Barrel, and it’s what I used here. Any cheddar made by them, whether White or Yellow Sharp, Extra Sharp, Vermont Sharp, or Marbled Sharp, is excellent. Tillamook and Cabot are also decent.
Cheddars I find that don’t work as well texture-wise are Kraft, Organic Valley, Target’s brand, and TJ’s brand. Also don’t use really high-end artisanal cheddars, because they usually don’t melt well.
Other Cheeses to Try
Stick with only melty cheeses for your nacho cheese dip, but know that you can change it up from just cheddar.
The typical 3-cheese Mexican shredded cheese usually has Monterey Jack Cheese, Sharp Cheddar, and Colby. Feel free to substitute the Monterey Jack or Colby Jack for part of the cheddar. Pepper Jack cheese is another great addition.
Whisk gently until the cheese melts and smooths out into a creamy, wonderful, pourable sauce:
It should have a flowy texture that runs and drips off the spoon in an even ribbon:
If at any point the nacho cheese gets too thick and doesn’t “run” off the spoon, just add more water or milk, and whisk to combine.
This happens naturally as the sauce cools down toward room temperature. Just add liquid, see if it smooths out again, and if it doesn’t, heat it gently over a low flame for a minute or two until you get a smooth sauce again.
When you cook the warm cheese dip on the stovetop, you run the risk of cooking too much moisture off, so you just have to add more if that happens. No big deal!
(Since I’ve been asked so many times, this is the mini-cast iron skillet picture above).
How to Serve It:
This Nacho Sauce is perfect poured on tortilla chips, fries, tater tots, or for dipping with soft pretzels. You can even drizzle it over hot dogs or grilled sausages.
The creamy cheese sauce also pairs really nicely with Baked Chicken Wings, Buffalo Garlic Knots, Crockpot Buffalo Chicken Dip, or Garlic Parmesan Wings.
Ideas for Flavor Enhancements
If you’re using a really good quality, flavorful cheddar, the nacho cheese sauce should be very flavorful even with these few ingredients. However, if you wish to add other ingredients, here are my suggestions.
- Stir in a large spoonful of Jalapeño Tomato Salsa
- Top with spiced Ground Beef from Ground Beef Tacos
- Add 2 tsp Taco Seasoning or Fajita Seasoning, or even just a good quality chili powder
- Add 1 tbsp of your favorite hot sauce
- Saute 1 tbsp minced jalapeno and 2 tbsp minced onion at the beginning with the butter
- Stir in a can of diced green chiles.
Tips and FAQ
Store in the refrigerator for up to 5 days, in an airtight container.
Heat the leftover nacho cheese in a skillet over low heat until melted and warm. Add 2 tbsp of water or milk and whisk until the cheese looks smooth and creamy again (adding moisture should restore that creamy smooth texture). If the sauce is still too thick and doesn’t “flow” well, add more liquid and whisk again. Do not reheat nacho cheese in the microwave.
Yes, for up to 2 months, but it will definitely separate, so you’ll need to reheat and whisk again to smooth it out, and probably add moisture. Follow the instructions above.
Keep on low heat on the stove, adding more liquid as needed to keep a smooth texture. Or use a crockpot, a fondue pot, or a saucepan over a warming plate.
Did you enjoy the recipe? Please leave a 5-star rating in the recipe card below and/or a review in the comments section further down the page. Or, follow me on Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest!
Nacho Cheese Sauce
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp butter (salted or unsalted)
- 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper (or to taste)
- 8 oz block sharp cheddar cheese* grated
Instructions
- Melt the butter in a medium size skillet over medium heat.
- Once the butter is melted add the flour.
- Whisk until it combines into a smooth blond paste and starts to bubble around the edges.
- Add the milk to the skillet and continue whisking.
- Once the milk is incorporated, raise the heat to high and bring to a boil.
- Once the milk has reached a boil, quickly lower the heat and reduce to a simmer. Allow the sauce to thicken slightly, about 30 seconds.
- Add the cayenne pepper and salt and whisk to combine.
- Turn off the heat, and remove the skillet from the stove**. Add the cheese and gently stir, allowing the cheese to melt.
- When the cheese is completely melted and the mixture smooth in consistency, the nacho cheese sauce is ready to serve. Enjoy immediately, as the sauce will get firm as it sits.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition is estimated using a food database and is only intended to be used as a guideline for informational purposes.
180 Comments on “Nacho Cheese Sauce”
Wow that is so perfectly cheesy and gooey. I want to pour it on everything!
Love this recipe! thank you for sharing. I did spice it up a bit more with garlic powder, taco seasoning, and black pepper. Loved it on nachos 🙂
Wonderful additions!
I thought this sauce was easy and delicious. Used it on nachos and crunchwraps
Really glad to hear that, Patricia!
What flour do you use? Multipurpose?
All-purpose flour is ideal here.
it tastes good just had a gritty texture. Maybe I didn’t add enough butter to my flour ratio?
I doubled the recipe and made as written using Tillamook Cheddar, then put it into a preheated crockpot. I took it to a birthday party, and it was perfect! Thanks for sharing the recipe! I was so grateful to find a recipe that didn’t use cheese product, and relieved my first attempt was successful.
Thanks for sharing that the crockpot situation worked out well!
The flavor and color was good but I could feel the flour (from making the rue) on my tongue. It was kind of distracting. I added some Rotelle Chile & Tomatoes for some more spice.
Good recipe but does it really need the flour?
Can you use rice water or people call it rice milk instead of cow’s milk?
That should be fine!
Very easy to make! I made mine with gluten free flour and it turned out fine. It was a bit thick so it could have used some more milk… I agree with the comment about the bland flavor, but here is a delicious solution I found! Add a few sprinkles of taco seasoning mix, Perfecto!=)
That sounds perfect! Sometimes I add a can of diced green chiles, salsa, etc.
I just made this tonight. The changes I made to mine were 4 tbs of butter(I wanted to double my portion due to my big family and teenagers), flour, two cups of heavy cream, cheese, cumin drained can of rotel, two cut up fresh jalapeno, 1 1/2 tsp of mustard and dash of worcester. My family LOVED this and I vowed to never buy Velveeta again. Thank you for sharing this recipe!! So delicious and authentic!
Hi Natalie, I’m really happy to hear that! I love all your adjustments here. Sounds delicious.
I did the exact to the point steps and it turned out to be a disaster
Hello, if you’d like some help troubleshooting, please provide some details and I can share my feedback.
Simple and delicious! Thank you!! My kids and I are gathered around the table snarfing it down 🙂
This sounds like what I am looking for to make a sausage nacho cheese dip. I usually make it with the canned nacho cheese soup, but I’m looking for a more homemade method 🙂 I will cook the sausage, onions and peppers and add the chili powder then make the sauce separately and mix together. Yummo.
Those would be great additions!
Can’t wait to try this. Just wondering if you think keeping it warm in a crockpot would keep it smooth?
Hi Billie, I haven’t tried the crockpot thing and I really should. I’ll test it out next time I make this.
I made this for beef nachos last night and put it in the crock pot on low (had the crock pot heating up while I made it so it was already up to temp when I put the sauce in) until my son got home from his night class and to keep it warm for seconds and everyone agreed it was just as good an hour and a half after initial serving as dished up off the stove.
Thanks for sharing this Susan, very helpful!
I thought this dip was bland and way too runny. Maybe it was the flour that gave it the blandness, and too much milk that made it runny, but whatever it was, it needed something. I had to add more and more cheese to thicken it and finally added cream cheese and mozzarella and that helped a little. For flavor I tried adding garlic powder, cumin and extra cayenne pepper. I was afraid to add salsa because it would have been a runny mess. It really wasn’t my favorite. It was edible but next time I’m going to find another one.
This exact recipe was what my dad used to make back in the day. We hit a rough patch back in the 80’s and ended up on welfare for a bit. That big block of “gummint” cheddar cheese meant my parents needed to get creative. We had it as Nachos (just tortillas and cheese), but also made a nice base for cheese soup which went well with some cornbread (gov’t cornmeal came in the box as well.)
Thanks!