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Recipes

Colorado Queso con Cerveza Dip

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  • Easy to make

    It's really just a matter of cooking the chicken and mashing everything together! Very forgiving and flexible depending on desired thickness

  • Quick to make

    About 45 minutes cook time

  • Inexpensive

    Common dairy items that won't break your bank and can be used for other things if you have extra!

  • Party Dish

    Great for large groups!

This dish was an absolute blast to make and A LOT easier than I thought it would be once I got into it!  I had seen a few different ideas online, and decided to make my own spin.  I must thank a friend from the past for the idea about the sour cream, ranch and franks – it truly made the difference in the dish! She used to have a similar recipe but would bake it rather than use the stove top.  If you want a crispy cheesy top, this is the way to go!

Ingredients:

–          1 lb boneless chicken breast (will be shredded so breast is important)

–          A bit of olive oil

–          8 oz sour cream

–          1 oz cream cheese

–          32 oz soft meltable cheese (we used a Velveeta block)

–          4-6 oz Shredded Cheese (we used Sharp)

–          8 oz Green chiles

–          1 Jalapeno

–          Ranch Dressing (just a bit)

–          Franks Buffalo Hot Sauce

–          Garlic (we used minced)

–          Salt

–          Pepper

–          Paprika

–          8 oz Light Beer (we used a pilsner)

This dish is pretty much a giant mix of everything together at once and adding a little extra of this or that depending on how thick or creamy you like your beer dip!  Because of that, let’s start with cooking the chicken and preparing all of our ingredients ahead of time.

We will be cooking the chicken first, and then adding it at the end of our session. The dip will taste somewhat boring until the chicken is added, as this is where we will be adding the spices rather than the dip itself.  It is important after cooking the chicken, that we shred thoroughly so flavor is evenly dispersed in the dip.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (some say 350, we are going for the faster cook time here)

Start with applying some olive oil to the chicken, a nice thin coat.  This will help the spices stick a little better and keep the chicken moist as we are cooking at a higher temperature!

Add the salt, pepper, paprika, and garlic to the chicken (as much or as little as you like. I’m a spice guy so I went a wee bit heavier than some would prefer).

Toss that chicken on a baking sheet with some tinfoil and stick it in the oven!

Have all your chiles and jalapenos cut? Dairy overload ready to get mixed together?  Let’s go!

Heat a medium to larger saucepan (better bigger than smaller in case you need to adjust and add more of something) at a medium low setting.  We are working with cheese so we don’t want to push the heat, patience is a key here.

Keynote: Make sure when you are adding and stirring, you are scraping that bottom regularly!

When the pan is warm, start by adding the soft cheese to the pan – this is our base to the dish everything else is fun extras.

Once the cheese has begun to melt and created a small even layer across the pan, you can begin adding the rest of the ingredients.  Start with the sour cream as this is softer than cream cheese, then add the cream cheese. Make sure you’re stirring regularly!

Have a sip of the beer, add most of the rest to your dish, finish the beer. Recycle.

With all of this melted, let’s add everything left EXCEPT the shredded cheese. This will be your one ingredient left to the side for now.  For the ranch and franks hot sauce, this is purely for some extra flavor so use it at your discretion. Keep in mind this will also change the thickness of your dish. NOW use the shredded cheese to help thicken up the dish as needed and to add an extra cheesy punch flavor to the dish!

Once you’ve reached the desired consistency, it’s time to add the chicken.

Shred the chicken up into fine bits, remember this is where the main flavor will come from in the dish. Add chicken to dish and stir well.

Pour dip into whatever fancy containers you are using, sprinkle with the rest of the shredded cheese and add some chopped green onions for color.  Ta Da, you’ve made beer dip!

When reheating, heavy cream or half and half is great, but milk (preferably whole) will work as well.