Semiserious Chefs

Jalapeño cheese dip is one of those dishes that you really can’t go wrong serving. It’s perfect as a tasty dip for tortilla chips, but it works equally well as a spread for hard crackers. Either way, it’s virtually mandatory game day food.

Jalapeño cheese dip can be made and served in a variety of ways. It can be served hot or cold or somewhere in between. If you want to get creative, you could try making some creamy spinach and artichoke dip and toss in a handful of diced jalapeños to add just a bit of heat for a new twist on traditional artichoke dip.

Which of course, can and should be served at your next party or game day get together. If you want a few additional ideas for party type food recipes check these out: Chicken wings and Buffalo wings, Onion rings – quick battered with Panko breading, and Crunchy two-bite chili pepper balls

And if you have some extra time check out this great recipe from Vanessa: Korean spicy fried chicken

Now before I continue I have to mention that I can’t take the credit for this recipe. It’s actually a recipe from Vanessa’s mom who said it was fine if I added it to the website. So all credit goes to her.

It hadn’t occurred to me to add a jalapeño cheese dip recipe until we went to the Alaska state fair a couple weeks ago and she brought the dip for dinner one evening. It’s quite simple to make actually, but it sure tastes good.

You can use whatever type of cheddar you want, but I recommend using extra sharp cheddar as the taste couples extremely well with the jalapeños and it helps give the dip more texture.

Also, if you’re not familiar with roasted garlic, basically you take a whole bulb of garlic and cut the top off. Then you liberally drizzle some olive oil over the whole thing and bake it in the oven until the garlic is soft and easy to work with. Typically this is done in aluminum foil but there are other ways of roasting garlic.

Here’s a link for one way of doing it. Perfectly Roasted Garlic

If you’d prefer not to worry about using roasted garlic, you can simply substitute some garlic powder instead. I wouldn’t use more than 1/2 a teaspoon though.

I have to mention a couple more things here. First, if you can find Key lime juice, use that instead of regular lime juice from concentrate. It tastes so much better.  And adding a tablespoon of jalapeño juice is optional. It gives it a little extra flavor or depth.

We hope you enjoy the recipe so let us know what you think in the comments below!