Trader Joe’s Spicy Buffalo Cheddar is the cheese I needed for Super Bowl Sunday. (Then again, I probably would have knocked the bowl over dancing during the half time show. :D ) This cheese lives somewhere between Velveeta and standard cheddar. And with jalapeños and habaneros in the mix, it’s got a good kick.
But it’s not really a cheese I’d eat just with crackers. You totally could, but it does have that hefty, dense texture since it’s a pasteurized process cheese. The good news is, it’s actually cheese, not a cheese food.
After tasting it straight, I didn’t get buffalo sauce, as much as it was just spicy nacho cheese sauce-flavor. So I decided the move was to melt it and see what kind of cheese dip action we could get. I microwaved it gradually rather than busting out a pan for such a small amount of cheese (roughly 1/4 lb.)
Even with an old microwave like mine, it melts pretty fast, so keep an eye on it. I did it in 30 second increments, stirring between each one, just until it was melted. It was warm, but not bubbling. If you look into the bowl below, you’ll see it starts to firm up again pretty fast. So I ended up adding 1 T. of milk and heating it again to see if that would help loosen it up. Like with Velveeta, you probably need a mini crockpot to keep it gently warming if you want to keep it more liquid.
This is with the milk added. A plate of chips and cheese is the obvious move here, rather than the dip, especially if you don’t have something to keep it warming. Fries could work, too.
I won’t keep Trader Joe’s Spicy Buffalo Cheddar in the house on the regular (I don’t have Velveeta either), but it would have been great to have during football season!
As you’ve probably noticed, some parts of the country including mine just aren’t getting new Trader Joe’s items. The list of things we haven’t seen yet in the PNW (while CA and NY get them) is long. And it’s not just the heart macarons, which apparently might show up now for Mother’s Day. I’ll try to keep up as best I can with the supply chain being what it is. Stick with me!