This is my favorite recipe for cheese dipping sauce. This spicy nacho cheese sauce is absolutely awesome with veggies, soft pretzels, and nachos! None of that processed stuff, either.
One reader, Gemma, commented: “Love this sauce with homemade soft pretzels… each dip got bigger and bigger until the sauce got on my hands and the pretzels were so loaded with it 😉 Thanks for another great recipe, Sally! ★★★★★“
Seriously! What is better than a bowl of silky, creamy, spicy nacho cheese sauce? Nothing. A far cry from processed, this spicy nacho cheese sauce is to die for. I love serving it with soft pretzel bites or pouring on top of a big bowl of broccoli. It’s how I get everyone to their vegetables. Just kidding… but not really.
Making nacho cheese sauce at home is not difficult. It’s actually one of the easiest and quickest little recipes around. There is no excuse to buy anything from a can or from a jar. Homemade cheese sauce, made from real sharp cheddar cheese, is the only way to go. Plus, it tastes worlds better.
I love serving this spicy nacho cheese sauce right from the stove when it’s warm. But this cheese sauce keeps well covered tightly in the refrigerator for about 1 week. Just heat it up before serving—it’s a great item to make ahead before the guests arrive.
How Spicy Is This Nacho Cheese Sauce?
That completely depends how spicy you want it. I can tolerate a little spice and I LOVE this homemade cheese sauce. In fact, sometimes I add even more hot sauce and cayenne than the recipe lists below. If you don’t like spice, leave both out.
Feel free to adjust the amount of spice based on your heat tolerance.
What to Serve with Spicy Nacho Cheese Sauce
- Soft Pretzel Bites
- Homemade Soft Pretzels or Jalapeño Cheddar Soft Pretzels
- Jalapeño Cheddar No Knead Bread
- Soft Pretzel Rolls
- Ciabatta Bread
- Breadsticks
- Biscuits
- Pretzel Chicken Bites
- Baked Onion Rings
- Baked Sweet Potato Fries
- Artisan Bread
- Tortilla chips and pretzels
- Or drizzled over baked potatoes, steamed broccoli, baked chicken, and homemade nachos
Everyone is going to go bonkers over this stuff.
Print
Kicked-Up Cheddar Cheese Sauce
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 20 minutes
- Yield: about 2 cups
- Category: Appetizers
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
Description
This is my favorite recipe for cheese dipping sauce. This spicy nacho cheese sauce is absolutely awesome with veggies, soft pretzels, and nachos! None of that processed stuff, either.
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup (4 Tbsp; 56g) unsalted butter
- 1/4 cup (31g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 2 cups (480ml) whole milk
- 2 cups (250g; 8 ounces) freshly shredded cheddar cheese
- 2 Tablespoons hot sauce
- 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- salt + pepper to taste
Instructions
- Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Sprinkle the flour over the top, stirring constantly until a thick paste forms, 1 to 2 minutes.
- Slowly add the milk to the flour/butter paste in a steady stream, whisking constantly. Continue cooking, whisking constantly until the mixture thickens, about 5 minutes. It should be thick but still pourable. Add the cheese, whisking constantly until it is melted. Add the hot sauce and cayenne. Taste, then add salt and pepper to taste. Add more cayenne and/or hot sauce if preferred.
- The sauce will thicken upon cooling. Store leftovers covered tightly in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. Heat over stovetop or in the microwave before serving again.
Notes
- Freezing Instructions: Cover cooled cheese sauce tightly and freeze for up to 3-6 months. Thaw in the refrigerator or at room temperature. Reheat over medium heat on the stove, whisking constantly, until warmed through.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Large Saucepan (like a Dutch oven) | Silicone Spatula or Wooden Spoon | Box Grater
- Half Batch: You can easily halve this recipe!
- Cheese: For best taste and texture, shred cheese off the block yourself with a cheese grater. Pre-shredded cheese is drier than freshly shredded, and contains anti-caking agents.
- Spiciness: You can leave out the hot sauce and/or cayenne.
Reader Comments and Reviews
This is a decent recipe, but I wanted to use this as a base and experiment with different hot sauces and adding other spices, and what I found that turned out truly amazing for us was using Cholula Chili Garlic hot sauce and adding 1 1/2 tablespoon of Meat Church Dia De La Fajita seasoning… the flavors just popped and went perfect on great tasting loaded beef nachos.
Great recipe! I had an hour to get these together- so I wasn’t the most careful with shaping and all and they still turned out great! Plus I did the nacho sauce while they were in the oven! Yum. 🙂 Kitchen was a disaster area. These are a keeper!
I use a lot of Sally’s recipes and they all come out amazing. I put this cheese sauce over my nachos/taco meat and OMG AMAZING!!!!
Thank you Sally for posting!
So so good! I made it with 2% milk and the texture and thickness are great. I only put a little more than 1/8 tsp of cayenne pepper because my kids don’t love spice. We used it on our homemade crunchwrap supremes. This one is a keeper!
Thanks for this recipe!
I’ve made this probably a couple dozen times and this is my go to. Always comes out great.
I now change it up a bit by using local IPA cheddar and then add hatch green chiles. Sometimes I’ll add a few cubes of Velveeta just to make it a little smoother.
This is great as a dip with some soft pretzels, or even mixed with some pasta for a killer mac n cheese. Also great on a Philly cheesesteak instead of Cheese Whiz.
This cheese sauce is fantastic! I’ve never made any cheese sauce before and I won’t touch processed cheese products with a ten foot pole, so my husband and I have greatly missed nachos. Enter Sally..! After reading comments I was a bit nervous but I decided to trust the process and the sauce was perfect! Thank you Sally!!!
Didn’t like at all. Used other recipes that were much tastier. Unusual as I typically love the recipes on this site. this one was a miss.
Question about the cheese sauce. I made a cheddar broccoli soup with similar ingredients and the sauce broke. I read it needed citric acid to keep from breaking. Any thoughts on this?
Hi Cheryl, while we haven’t tested it with this sauce, many recipes for cheese sauce call for a small amount of either lemon juice, vinegar, or even white wine so it should work. Let us know if you give it a try!
Can you (or your readers) recommend a hot sauce to use? I tried Tabasco sauce (it’s what I had on hand) and although the cheese dip was good, it didn’t have the flavor that I normally associate with nacho cheese sauce.
Hi Shirley, We like to use Frank’s, but you can use whichever hot sauce you enjoy.
I use green pepper Cholula along with the cayenne pepper listed in the recipe, which gives it more of the “nacho” flavor I wanted. I’ve tried Frank’s before, but the flavor reminds me more of wings than nacho cheese
I make this recipe often and it always turns out great!
This was awful. Even with cutting back on the amount of flour, it still tasted pasty. I should have used corn starch.
I struggled with this recipe as others did, but I’m one who respect the professional and looked inward to figure out what went wrong. Sally’s recipes are meticulously written so it’s best to follow them in kind. There are just a small amount of variables in this recipe so it was fun to play with. Heat, flour, fat (butter and milk), and cheese quality. The latter was easy, I just bought a better quality (and paid dearly for it). Still grainy. Okay… she said it six times in the comments, and once in the recipe. Use the correct amount of flour. My issue was grainy not flour tasting. I’ve cooked many a gravy and sauce and learned long ago. You have to patiently cook the roux and whisk constantly. That wasn’t my problem though. I went for coagulation due to too much heat. No joy. I still didn’t want to believe I used too much flour. So, I reasoned that if there was too much flour the there wasn’t enough fat. I added butter (not margerine or a canola butter). A broken sauce became silkier. Still grainy though, but much improved. Let’s add milk. Even better. I was onto something. Break out the gram scale and make another batch. Perfect! And that’s when I remembered my mother saying, if only you would stop thinking! LOL, yes, too much flour. Sally said this in the ingredients list: “spooned and leveled.” No need for a scale. Thank you Sally, for reminding me to follow directions!
So glad it worked out for you, Evvy!
Just made it with my kids along with the cheese sauce. So good.
I make pretzel loaves, pretzel buns but I had never made pretzel bites before. This was so much fun and successful. The cheese dip is a perfect accompaniment and neither one was labor intensive making it perfect in my opinion. One of my biggest pet peeves is when something is delicious but you are exhausted after making it and you are entertaining. I however waited to make this recipe before a neighborhood get-together otherwise you seriously can’t stop at just eating one.
I have made this delicious cheese sauce multiple times and it always comes out incredible. And I’m back here because I’m making it yet again! I’ve personally never noticed any overpowering flour taste so I can’t say I agree with some of the previous comments!!! This recipe is a keeper. I make it with Sally’s soft pretzel recipe. So. Good. Thank you!!
My sauce came out perfect. I used ancho chilies in pepper sauce since I couldn’t find hot sauce and only 1/4 tsp paprika since I was sharing with my toddler. It was perfect.
Hot sauce is often found in the section with bottled sadad dressing.
It may also be in the gourmet/foreign foods aisle.
Loved this! Perfect to go with pretzel bites!
Much like other reviews, I also found an overwhelming taste of flour. The roux was well cooked to a nice golden colour, which should cook off the flour taste, but it didn’t. The sauce also does not cook to a smooth consistency and seemed grainy almost, which you can actually see in the photos. I noticed this but didn’t think it would come through in the taste. Except for the fact that is was spicy, it tasted like Mac n cheese sauce, ot nacho sauce. Next time will find a recipie that uses either corn starch or evaporated milk rather than plain milk. Most of it just got tossed out.
Is it possible to make a version of this with unsweetened, unflavored almond milk? We don’t do well with milk, however cheese doesn’t bother us (thank goodness).
Hi Tanis, Should be fine!
Hi! Would 18% cream be too heavy to use for this recipe? I only have 18% or 2%, any advice on which to choose would be appreciated! Thank you so much!
Hi Greg, heavy cream is a bit too thick for this cheese sauce. It’s really best to stick with milk if you can!
I didn’t use the cayenne pepper or the hot sauce because I do not like spice, but it was delicious!!! Will be making again!!
This came out horrible. Way to much flour. Followed the recipe to the letter.
Never making an internet recipe again
Wow, dramatic or what haha
Standard white sauce/roux is 1tbsp flour:1 tbsp fat:1 cup milk. However, most cheese sauces I’ve seen use half the milk because you want a thicker sauce. This recipe is fairly consistent with what you’d expect. I would say that cooking the flour in the fat for a bit before adding the milk makes it taste better. I think it’s too bad that you will “never use an internet recipe again” because one didn’t turn out. I use the internet recipes all the time and Sallys baking addiction almost always has the best recipe for anything I’m looking for. I hope you are able to branch out of your comfort zone and try new things.
I love all of your recipes! This pretzel recipe was soo good, In one day my children and husband (who doesn’t really like pretzels) ate the whole batch! Thank you so much for providing families and individuals with delicious recipes, because we all know if it is on your website it must be amazing.
My sauce tasted alot like flour not cheese what can I do different
Hi Dee, was the flour over measured by chance? That’s often the culprit when the sauce tastes more “doughy” than cheesy. It’s also possible the butter and flour weren’t cooked long enough– and that’s why it tasted a little grainy/like flour. Cook the butter and flour until it forms a paste before adding the milk.
I love all your recipes and have made so many of them but for some reason my butter/flour mixture never turned into a paste so I could begin the next steps, might I be doing something incorrectly? Everything is weighed before I began so I know the measurements were right.
Hi Roxanne! It might help to use a smaller pan, if you have one, so the butter isn’t so spread out.
When freezing, put a wee bit of either wax paper, freezer paper or cling wrap on the surface of the sauce. This helps keep the integrity of the sauce and prevents ice crystals touch the surface of the sauce.
8oz is one cup but the recipe says two. Could you clarify please?
Hi Cherry, 8 ounces = 2 cups in shredded cheese. Hope this helps!
Desales University in Center Valley, PA Has an awesome theater program. Their concession sells a “rice crispy treat” that stands about 3” high and 4” square. I’ve never seen or tasted anything else like it! It looks more chocolate than typical rice treats. It is peanut buttery and also has pretzel pieces and round chocolate cereal balls (Cocoa Puffs)in it. I have yet to meet another krispy treat to match. It is one special concoction! Anything in your repertoire similar?
Hi Pam! Sounds delicious. We love our Rice Krispies recipe, and our scotcheroos recipe. You could try adapting those recipes by adding pretzel pieces and Cocoa Puffs in the place of some rice ksripie treats. We would love to hear what you try!
I would like to make your Spicy Nacho Cheese Sauce for Super Bowl on Sunday. I’d like to add some acidity and am wondering if I did, would that sauce the sauce to break? I would appreciate your feedback. Thank you.
Hi Elise, while we haven’t tested it with this sauce, many recipes for cheese sauce call for a small amount of either lemon juice, vinegar, or even white wine so it should work. Let us know if you give it a try!
Can I use a crock pot to keep it warm ?
Can’t see why not!
Can I sub reg 1% milk for whole?
Hi Laura! The cheese sauce won’t be quite as creamy, but it should work fine.