Taco Bell Cheese Sauce Recipe

Taco Bell's nacho cheese sauce is a pourable sauce of nonfat milk, cheese whey, oil and starch with a little jalapeño purée; its ingredient list names no cheddar. This copy melts American cheese into evaporated milk: a cup of milk, eight ounces of cheese, a teaspoon of cornstarch and a spoonful of pickled jalapeño, ready in under fifteen minutes.

What is in Taco Bell's nacho cheese sauce

Taco Bell gives the ingredients in the nutrition label of its Chips and Nacho Cheese Sauce: nonfat milk, cheese whey, water, vegetable oil, modified food starch and maltodextrin. Everything else is at 2 percent or less, among it natural flavours, sea salt, jalapeño purée, vinegar, yeast extract, dipotassium phosphate, potassium citrate, and annatto and paprika for colour. The sauce is certified vegetarian.

Three things follow for a copy. The base is milk, not cheese. The heat is jalapeño, in a small amount. And the smoothness comes from the phosphate and the citrate, which are emulsifying salts.

This is a reconstruction from that list, and two tablespoons come to about 75 calories by USDA figures. MakeFoodLovely is not connected with Taco Bell.

Recipe

Taco Bell Nacho Cheese Sauce

A reconstruction of Taco Bell's nacho cheese sauce — evaporated milk and American cheese with a little pickled jalapeño, melted into a smooth, pourable sauce. About 1 3/4 cups, fourteen servings of 2 tablespoons.

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Prep

5 min

Cook

8 min

Total

13 min

Serves

14

Cuisine

Mexican-American

Ingredients

• 1 cup evaporated milk
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch
• 8 ounces American cheese (torn into pieces)
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped pickled jalapeños
• 1 tablespoon pickled jalapeño brine
• 1/4 teaspoon paprika

Instructions

1. Whisk the cornstarch into the cold evaporated milk in a small saucepan.
2. Heat over medium-low heat, stirring, for about 3 minutes, until the milk steams and thickens slightly. Do not let it boil.
3. Add the cheese a handful at a time, stirring until each addition has melted before adding the next.
4. Mash or blend the jalapeños with the brine to a purée and stir it in with the paprika. Keep the sauce warm over the lowest heat, and thin it with a spoonful of milk if it thickens.

Nutrition

Calories:

75

Calculated from the ingredient quantities above using the USDA FoodData Central database, then divided by the number of servings. It is an estimate and will vary with the exact products you use.

Why American cheese goes into a Taco Bell cheese sauce copy

American cheese is a processed cheese made with sodium citrate, which keeps the fat from separating and gives it a low melting point. It brings into the pan the same kind of salt that the label lists, so it melts into warm milk without turning grainy. Cheddar on its own splits into strings and fat.

• From the deli counter. Cheese sliced from a block melts into a thicker sauce than individually wrapped slices.
• Yellow or white. Yellow American is coloured with annatto, the colour the label names. With white American, the paprika gives the colour.
• A sharper sauce: replace 2 ounces of the American cheese with grated sharp cheddar. With more than that the sauce turns grainy.

Thin enough to pour

The sauce thickens as it cools. Keep it over the lowest heat, or in a small slow cooker set to warm, and stir in milk a tablespoon at a time. It must not boil: boiling tightens the cheese proteins, and the fat separates.

Evaporated milk can be replaced by 1 cup of whole milk with the cornstarch doubled. That sauce is thinner and a little less rich.

Four days in the refrigerator

Cold, the sauce sets like soft cheese. It keeps 4 days, covered. Reheat it gently with 1 to 2 tablespoons of milk, stirring, on the stove or in the microwave in 20-second bursts.

Where the sauce goes

It is the nacho cheese in the steak nacho fries, the cheesy double beef burrito and the stacker, and the dip for the cheesy dipping burritos. For nachos, pour it over tortilla chips and seasoned beef.

A sauce made with cheddar is the Ricos nacho cheese sauce copy.