Game Day Queso - CrockPot Recipe!

*Note: You want to start this about half an hour to forty-five minutes before you and your friends/family will want to eat it because the cheese takes a long time to melt.

We had an impromptu Super Bowl party last weekend with a wonderful group of friends. I wanted to serve some snacky items during the pre-game and first half before we sat down to enjoy Scott’s brisket, some baked beans, and cole slaw for dinner. We figured chips with queso, guacamole, and salsa would be the way to go, plus our friends brought some pita chips and hummus (YUM!!). I’m not very experienced in the art of queso-making, so I called my mom for a bit of advice. After taking her words to heart, Scott and I played with the ingredients and came up with our own Game Day Queso. I didn’t add black beans to the queso on Sunday, but I think I will try it in the future. I don’t see how it could be bad…

Ingredients

  1. 32-oz block of Velveeta cheese
  2. 1 can cream of mushroom soup
  3. 1 lb ground beef (we chose lean beef at 93-7 to cut down on the grease)
  4. 1 can Ro-Tel Original
  5. 1 can black beans (optional, as I’ve not tried this yet so if it’s terrible, I’m sorry!)

Directions

  1. Cube up the Velveeta cheese into one-inch cubes and place them in your CrockPot. Crank that baby to high because it takes about half an hour for the cheese to melt. Seriously…
  2. In a saute pan, cook the ground beef in a tiny bit of oil (we like pecan) with whatever seasonings you like (we used a bit of seasoned salt, chili powder and cumin because we wanted the meat to have a bit of taco flavor to it since it was going in queso).
  3. If necessary, drain the ground meat then dump it into the CrockPot with the queso.
  4. Add the Ro-Tel, cream of mushroom soup, and, if you’re feeling adventurous, black beans, and give it a good stirring.
  5. Put the lid on the crock pot and let it cook, stirring every 5-7 minutes to get it all nice and mixed together.

*Note: I left my CockPot on the “warm” setting once the cheese melted, and I thought it didn’t keep things warm enough. It wasn’t a health/food safety concern as much as it bothered me that the cheese did what cheese does as it cools off a bit: it got that tough layer on the top. In the future, I think I’ll keep the setting on “low” since with queso, you keep the lid off the CrockPot. I don’t think it will actually simmer.