Asadero Cheese for Queso Blanco

Asdero Cheese for White Cheese Dip

Not all Asaderos are the same!

It was brought to my attention that sometimes the recipe doesn't turn out right. I couldn't figure out why the cheese would separate for someone who emailed me in August, 1999, until I had to buy a different brand of Asadero than I normally get. Well, I think I have found the problem! Del Norte Ranch's Asadero may be good cheese, but it's not good for making cheese dip. One thing I noticed was that it is made from whole milk.

The brand I've been using to make the dip is Cacique Asadero cheese. It's pre-sliced (in layers) and comes in a round plastic package weighing 12 ounzes. The ingredients are part skim milk cheeses (cultured pastuerized milk and skim milk, salt, and enzymes), nonfat dry milk, sodium citrate, soy lecithin and titanium dioxide (for color). Just in case you cannot find the brand in your local stores, there may be a comparable type of cheese you can purchase and try out instead.

Early in 2002, someone with a lot of experience in the cheese industry wrote to share some of his knowledge with me. He agreed to let me post his comments here but asked that his name be withheld.

The original Chile Con Queso made in Mexico was made with Asadero, green chile, onions, and sometimes tomato. It was not a single mass like the retail commercial-made products.

It is hard to find a true authentic Asadero in the US now of days--the cheese labeled Asadero from Wisconsin is Muenster Cheese without the rind coloring. The Asadero cheeses out of California are closer to American Process cheese (compare the ingredients). Note that the main common ingredient besides cheese (milk, rennet, cultures, salt) is sodium citrate, an emulsifier that is used during the process to make the cheese product into a unified homogeneous mass. A true Asadero is stringy, soft and elastic when heated versus a Cacique Asadero which just becomes soft like the cheese it is--a process cheese.

All cheese is white or off-white like the color of milk used to produce it. Some cheese is more yellow because it has a higher butterfat content. Color is added to milk for the yellow cheeses like Cheddar, Colby, American, etc.

Keywords: mexican white cheese sauce