Blender Queso with Roasted Green Chiles
Restaurant queso is molten cheese and little else, which is why it never travels to a plant-based table intact. This rebuilds it from the trick oil-free cooks have used for years: boiled potato and carrot, blended with soaked cashews, turn into a smooth pourable sauce the color and cling of melted cheese, with nutritional yeast supplying the savory tang. What makes it Tex-Mex rather than plain is the fire-roasted green chile folded through at the end, the poblano for smoke and body and the jalapeno for heat. Blend the potato gently and no longer than it takes to go smooth, because overworked potato starch turns the sauce gummy. It thickens as it sits, so keep the reserved cooking water nearby to loosen it back to a dip.
Ingredients
- 2 cups Potatoes, peeled and diced
- 1 cup Carrots (cooking), sliced
- 1/3 cup Raw cashews, soaked 15 minutes in hot water, drained
- 3 tbsp Nutritional yeast
- 1/2 tsp Cumin seed, toasted and ground
- 2 cloves Garlic
- 2 tbsp Lime juice, fresh
- 1 Poblano, roasted, peeled, seeded, chopped
- 1 JalapeƱo, roasted, seeded, chopped
- 1 Fresh tomatoe, small, seeded and diced
- 2 Scallions, sliced, to finish
Method
- Boil the potato and carrot together in unsalted water until both are completely soft, about 12 minutes, then drain and keep the cooking water. Cooking them together means one pot, and the soft carrot is what gives the finished queso its orange, cheesy color with no dairy behind it.
- While they boil, roast the poblano and jalapeno directly over a flame or under the broiler, turning until the skins blister and blacken. Seal them in a bowl with a plate on top for 10 minutes, then rub the loose skins off and chop them. Roasting is the whole point of a green-chile queso: it turns raw pepper into something smoky and sweet.
- Blend the drained potato and carrot with the soaked cashews, nutritional yeast, ground cumin, garlic, and lime juice, adding the reserved cooking water a few tablespoons at a time until it pours like warm cheese sauce. Blend only until smooth and no longer, since potato starch turns gluey if you run the blender too hard.
- Nutritional yeast is doing the cheesy savor here and the cashews the richness, so no oil or cheese is needed to make it read as queso. Taste and add lime if it needs sharpening.
- Scrape the sauce into a pan, fold in the chopped roasted chiles and the diced tomato, and warm it gently, loosening with a splash of water as it thickens. Serve hot, scattered with scallions, with raw vegetables or whole-grain chips.
Nutrition
Estimated per serving: 80 calories, 3 g protein, 3 g fiber, 30 mg sodium. Computed from USDA FoodData Central reference values for the main ingredients. This is an approximation, not a laboratory measurement. How these are computed.
Cost per serving is estimated from US national-average retail prices for cheap staple forms, using BLS dried-bean prices and USDA produce prices. Prices vary by store and season, so treat it as a guide, not a receipt. How this is computed.
