Queso Fundido is a delicious dish of spicy sausage and melted cheese. It makes for a great, freezer-friendly taco filling that your whole crowd will love.
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I feel like I can say I’ve now achieved “mature woman” status. I’ve got recipes that I’ve been making for over 20 years. How is that possible? If memory serves me correctly, this recipe for Queso Fundido is one of those old standby recipes for me.
According to Wikipedia, Queso Fundido is
a dish of hot melted cheese and spicy chorizo that is often served flambé. Often compared to cheese fondue, it is a party dish; it is popular at cookouts and in restaurants as an appetizer.
My rendition of it has a few tweaks to it. First, I don’t care for chorizo, so I use hot Italian sausage. Bonus: it’s more readily available. My version is also more sausage than cheese, and we serve it as a main dish around here. Party on, my friends!
Queso Fundido is super easy to make. One of the things that I love about it is that it’s super freezer-friendly. You can cook up a vat of sausage, divide it among pie plates, sprinkle on your cheese, wrap, cool, and freeze. Voila! You’ve got one of the most amazing taco fillings all ready and waiting in your freezer!
How to make this good and cheap:
Here are some of the strategies you can use to make this recipe more economical:
- Stock up on ingredients when they are on sale. When I find regular kitchen staples on sale, I buy a lot. I’m currently using a price book to track prices and that’s saving me money. For this recipe, keeping an eye on the price of bulk Italian sausage is helpful. You can also use the kind in the casings, just bulk is easier. My target price is currently $3.99 or less per package.
- Buying in bulk – I buy my pepper jack cheese in big ginormous hunks at Costco. It offers the best unit price in my neighborhood. If you don’t go through big blocks of cheese very fast, shred it all at one time and then freeze the shredded cheese in 2-cup portions or make a lot of Queso Fundido. Shredded cheese freezes and thaws beautifully.
How I make this recipe easy:
This recipe really couldn’t be easier than it is, but having the right kitchen tools can really make your time in the kitchen more enjoyable. Over time, I’ve honed my collection so that they are perfect for my needs.
- food processor for shredding cheese
- a great skillet – I have two of these
- USA pie plates – no need to grease these pans – they are awesome!
- heavy-duty aluminum foil – great for wrapping freezer meals when your dish doesn’t come with a lid.
Queso Fundido
Ingredients
- 1 lb hot bulk Italian sausage
- 1 onion (1 cup chopped)
- 8 oz pepper jack cheese (shredded ) (2 cups)
- ¼ cup fresh cilantro (chopped)
- corn tortillas preferably homemade
- taco toppings
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a pie plate with nonstick cooking spray.
- In a large skillet, brown the sausage and onion, breaking up the meat with the back of a spoon. Drain and spoon the mixture into an 8-inch pie dish. Cover the mixture with cheese.1 lb hot bulk Italian sausage, 1 onion, 8 oz pepper jack cheese (shredded )
- Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until the cheese is melted. Top with fresh cilantro. Serve with corn tortillas, sour cream, and salsa.¼ cup fresh cilantro (chopped), corn tortillas, taco toppings
Notes
Nutrition
Nia
OMGOODNESS Jessica! I’ve wanted to try this for years. Before reading this recipe on your site I’d never heard of queso fundido. We had this for dinner tonight, using a nasty organic Italian sausage from Abundant Harvest Organics. We didn’t like the sausage on our pizza and I couldn’t bring myself to throw it out, since it’s organic and a little pricey for my tastes. Anyhoo, I am so glad I froze it instead of getting rid of it because I was able to try this recipe. It was delicious cooked with onion, coated in cheese, wrapped in a corn tortilla along with fresh salsa (your recipe using fresh tomatoes instead of canned). All I can say is OMG again (Hmmmm I just realized OMG backwards is GMO LOL- though not something to laugh about really). So, so good. And I can’t believe such a simple recipe could taste so amazing. Thanks for telling us how to make this! Bye now!
Jessica Fisher
I’m so glad you enjoyed it — and that you were able to salvage the sausage. I’ve used many different kinds and we always like this. I don’t recommend chorizo, though. I didn’t like it with that.
Carla
This is one of my “Oh, no! Didn’t do a meal plan what am I going to fix tonight kindof meal.” But last night I had a twist in that I am in week 2 of low carb diet(I had to drool over the Red Velvet Pancakes I made the boys this morning).
Soooo, I took a green pepper, cut it in two, blanched it, and then stuffed it with this filling and baked it! (It’s also nice with mushrooms although gives a different flavor). So, not as fun as on tortillas but I still got to enjoy the meal without having to totally prepare something different for myself. 🙂 Yum.
Jessica Fisher
You always come up with such great alternatives. I need to have you help me test recipes for the next book. 🙂
Carla
That would be fun. Thought the adaptation might be an idea for you getting through the next 30 days–I guess you’d have to drop the cheese but . . .
Jessica Fisher
I had that on my plan until I called Sprouts today and found out that they put sugar in their sausage. It would be perfect except for that….
The Gentle Mom
I’ve made this recipe twice (with chorizo), and we LOVE IT! Hubby likes to eat it on flour tortillas with lettuce and tomatoes, just like beef tacos. I usually just have a little of the sausage and some sour cream on a tortilla – delicious!
Jessica Fisher
It’s definitely one of our favorites, too.
Kelsy
I’m so excited to try this recipe! I am so bored with my normal freezer meals and am on the hunt for some inspiration. So glad I found your recipes. Just wondering if you think it would work to add some whole grain rice to the filling before freezing? I’ve been wondering about freezing rice. Thank you!
Jessica Fisher
I’ve never added rice to this dish. We prefer just meat and cheese with rice on the side.
Amanda
My (Mexican-American) in-laws use chorizo more for flavor than as an actual dish by itself. They use it in eggs or pinto beans!
Allison
This sounds like such a great easy recipe! About how many would you say this serves? I have 4 kidlets and 2 grownups to feed. Thanks!! 🙂
Jessica Fisher
I usually feed my family one pan with rice and beans and a big stack of homemade tortillas on the side. So, that feeds 8 — if you’ve got the sides.
Carla
We loved this concept. I will admit to chickening out over the sausage since we don’t do spicy– stuck to a milder turkey breakfast sausage since I had that browned from my red beans/rice over the weekend. I also threw in some freshly prepared black beans to stretch the filling (you know about 14yo boys). Will definitely do again, and make it a double for a freezer meal!
Jessica Fisher
Sounds like it was a hit. I’m so glad.
Bella
This would be so good with Cevapci! It’s an Eastern European sausage. Yum, I’m going to try these with your recipe and with the cevapci, too. Thanks!
MamaK
I’m not a fan of the chorizo either. I tried this at a restaurant with shrimp so if you ever get a good deal on shrimp, you should totally try it. It was so good! I never thought about freezing it so I’ll be adding this to my freezer list.
Stephanie
This looks really good. We raise our own beef so I think I am going to try this with ground meat and homemade taco seasoning.
Allie Zirkle
I was clicking around and only thought “hmmm, I should make this” after seeing the picture here (http://lifeasmom.com/2010/10/freezer-cooking-recipes-you-can-count-on.html). Maybe you could update this post with the photo? Looks and sounds very tasty!!
Jessica Fisher
Thanks for a great suggestion. I didn’t start taking (decent) photos until 2011, so yeah, a photo was necessary.
April Driggers
Can you just buy a bag of corn tortillas and freeze them on top of this (after it’s cooled?) I like to keep all the meals components together but honestly, I haven’t ever frozen tortillas
Jessica Fisher
@April Driggers, you certainly could. At our house, hubs insists on making the tortillas fresh rt before serving. Thankful that he insists on doing it himself. 😉
April Driggers
@Jessica Fisher,
OOOH I’d LOVE if he’d do that but if we want them fresh, we run down the street and buy them at one of the stores (there are three within about a 10 mile radius) that make them fresh there (one of the perks of living in Texas). 🙂 I don’t know if I’d have the patience to make my own because they’d have to be PERFECTLY round! Ha!
Cherish
Sounds yummy! My husband was eyeballing it and likes it.
Teresa
I don’t get it. It sounds like a dip. Do you dip the tortillas? or are you rolling it up? Sounds yummy but I just can’t figure out how you serve it 🙂
Jessica Fisher
It’s a taco filling, but you could certainly eat it as a dip.
Katherine
Ooo sounds great! Any chance you can post a picture for us??
Jessica6903
This sounds good. I think we might try it with Jennie-O Hot Turkey Italian Sausage.
Melinda
This sounds really delicious, adding it to my list of gotta-rey-that recipes!
Your Frugal Friend, Niki
Oooh! That does sounds absolutely fantastic!
Thanks for sharing!
🙂
Going Green Mama
Sounds good. The pepper jack could be a good complement to the chorizo. We tried chorizo for the first time yesterday, on pizza (it was an Emeril recipe). It’s spicy, but great and not too greasy, we thought. Though I will warn you it may be too much for the kids!
Native American Momma
this sounds so yummy and easy!