This Super Bowl Sunday, Think Chili Cheese Bar
This Sunday, I will be watching the Super Bowl with my dad for the first time in literally forever. We watched a lot of football together, but almost all of it was SEC games. Oddly enough, I won’t cook anything. My dad told me that my stepmother loves to make chili dogs and Rotel sauce for such occasions and I’m happy to let her make her chili and cheese.
Chili and cheese are two iconic dishes that the public loves. You can eat a plate of chili with melted cheese and it will be delicious, or you can mix one or both of these things into another dish and improve it greatly. If you’re going to be serving a crowd this Sunday, consider a chili cheese bar.
What is a chili cheese bar?
As in the baked potato bar or the gin and tonic bar, in the chili and cheese bar, the main course or ingredient—in this case, a combination of chili and cheese—is surrounded by appropriate—in this case, predominantly carbohydrate—accessories. Hot dogs, french fries, potato chips, tortilla chips, frito pie are all enhanced with a ladle of chili cheese.
How do you make chili cheese?
Chili is a varied dish with many styles and variations, but don’t get too carried away with chili as you are going to mix it with Velveeta. (Please spare me the worry about “chemicals” and “real food”. Melting salts are a marvel of modern food science, and you should be grateful for their existence.)
If you’d like to make your own chili, I recommend this easy no-bean Texas recipe ; if you want something without meat use this from AA Newton . If you really want to make your own emulsified cheese product, you can take some sodium citrate or go the roux route (find out how to do both here ).
Either way, you’ll need approximately 1 can of chili (15 ounces) and 1 pound of emulsified cheese. (You can also use a pound of shredded cheese, but it can be stringy.) Place both items in a slow cooker and heat on “high” until cheese is melted, then stir to combine and adjust heat to “low” to keep warm . . If you’re short on time, you can melt food on the stove and then transfer it to the slow cooker to serve.
What to serve at a chili bar?
There are two ways to do this: fully hosted or bundling style. If you take the latter route, ask each guest to bring their favorite chili-cheese-friendly items, such as hot dogs, french fries, tots, tortilla chips, etc. Otherwise, you’ll have to buy these items yourself.
With or without garnish, you should supply some garnishes such as sour cream, hot sauce, diced green onion, diced red onion, pickled onion, jalapeno peppers (both fresh and pickled), grated cheese (like spicy cheddar) , crumbled cheese (for example, cotija). ), Mexican-style cremas are things like that.
Arrange various foods and garnishes around the chili pot and let your guests create their chili cheese creations however they see fit while you focus on the game.