I tried this recipe a while back Cheese Sauce for Cheese Fries and Nachos Recipe.
I didn't have any evaporated milk. I found a recipe for it,
3 1/2 cups of whole milk into a saucepan.
Bring to a simmer then reduce heat to maintain a medium-low simmer.
Stir often to prevent scorching for 25-30 minutes.
The goal is to reduce by half.
However, it was very sweet, or at least sweeter that I would have expected for a nacho cheese sauce. Maybe I over-reduced it? Maybe it was the vessel. I had to monitor it to keep from bubbling, and it took a lot longer that it sould have.
If I use sour salt, can I go with just regular milk, but the rest of the recipe as-is?
by oromundo
5 Comments
Best yellow nacho cheese sauce I’ve found is just 60/40 mix of cheese/liquid with 2% sodium citrate by weight. Liquid portion is mainly water with about 2 Tbsp brine from jarred jalapeños and 1 Tsp franks red hot per 8oz block of sharp cheddar cheese. I never found a recipe that I liked that used evaporated milk.
I make this sauce regularly but don’t bother stirring the cornstarch into the cheese. Instead I just pour half the can of milk into a saucepan then reserve the other half of the can for another day of this recipe or the 3 ingredient mac and cheese. Then I heat it up and dig a fork into my container of cornstarch and dump that into the milk & stir. At this point I stir in whatever dried spices and/or hot sauce I’m feeling like that day. Often it’ll be some granulated garlic and some dried cayenne or other chili powder. Then when it starts to bubble, down goes the heat and stir in the shredded cheese(s) of my choice.
I’d say if you’re not using evaporated milk you would be better off just starting with a standard flour based roux. Melt your butter, stir in your flour then add your milk. 3 1/2 cups is going to make an awful lot of sauce though, haha.
My go to is 2:1: .03. (By weight)
2 parts cheese
1 part liquid
3 percent of cheese weight in sodium citrate.
Shred the cheese in a robot coupe.
Add all ingredients into a double boil setup.
Mix until all is emulsified.
Portion.
Can we clear up one point I’m still confused about? Sour Salt = citric acid, correct?
But Sour Salt is “not” sodium citrate?
How do you go about measuring the sodium citrate weight ratio?
Sodium citrate is absolutely the way! And I use homemade beef chilli and water as my “liquid”.