 We're talking queso from the birthplace of cheese dip. And by cheese dip, I mean Velveeta and Rotel, Arkansas. Did you know that? Fun fact, here's another fun fact. As of 2023, there are nearly 8 billion people on planet Earth and 20 billion plus recipes for smoked queso online. That's 3.89 recipes per non lactose intolerant person. That's overwhelming. Where to start? Which recipe to use? Which recipe to not use? All valid questions. This weekend, I spent a little bit of time making five of the most popular smoked queso recipes on YouTube. I'm gonna run you through my rankings of each, let you know which one maybe is worth making, what's not worth making, and at the very end, we'll talk about how to make the ultimate smoked queso. Number five on my rankings is from Chuds Barbecue. This is a recipe I really wanted to love, pays homage to Torti's Tacos, which reminds me of my time living in Austin, Texas. Here's the pros. It's a very flavorful queso that does remind me a lot of Torti's Tacos. It has all the components, like a guacamole dial up on top. It has this homemade Diablo sauce that tastes like Torti's Diablo sauce. The cons, first of all, it's pretty labor-intensive. This takes a while to make. You need to make guacamole. All the ingredients for the guacamole aren't in the written recipe. A little bit of scrambling there. It's kind of hard to follow. The queso itself, the only smoked component, two blocks of cheese, they go on the smoker while you kind of make everything else, which works out because it'll take well over an hour to make every component. The cheese sauce starts with some veggie milk, and then there's American cheese instead of velvita. It's really hard to beat velvita for a silky smooth sauce. That said, I thought American cheese would do a little better, but once I incorporated the smoked cheese blocks into this, I just never got that silky smooth consistency. I tried adding a little bit more milk. I tried adding a little bit more American cheese. I just never got it right. You know what I'm talking about. If you've ever made a cheese dip or queso without velvita and you get that texture, it's just unmistakable. So this one gets a knock for that. It's not my favorite consistency of the bunch. It's a little labor-intensive. That said, great flavor. If you just made the Diablo sauce, I mean, that's a great recipe on its own. Number four on my rankings, Cowboy Kent Rollins. This is a unique smoked queso. It includes a smoked chuck roast that you made before. This would also be a great one to use with leftover chopped brisket, pulled pork, any kind of proteins you have. I will say, I was a little skeptical about the chuck roast because he says only cook it for three to four hours where I thought you would need to take that chuck roast to 200 plus degrees to break down all that intramuscular fat and connective tissue to where it's tender, but you're chopping it up into small pieces. So it's okay. There's a little bit of chew to it, which is kind of nice. Where this recipe falls a little flat, it's in the flavor department. It's a little under-seasoned in my opinion, which you could fix pretty easily. It also uses mozzarella, which I think is an interesting choice for mac and cheese. I really had to add quite a bit of liquid to get rid of that stringy cheese pulley texture to make this a smoother smoked queso. It does have tons of smoked flavor with the smoked chuck roast. And once all the cheese goes in, it stays on the smoker quite a while at a lower temperature like 250. So you get tons of smoky flavor. If you added a bit more seasoning to this right before serving, I think you got a really great queso. Number three on my rankings is from Hey Girl Hey. This is another unique smoked queso recipe that starts out almost like over-the-top chili. You have veggies on a sheet pan with broken up breakfast sausage pieces on top, seasoned with her fiesta rub. That smokes before you add it to a pretty traditional cheese sauce with some velveta. You do add pinto beans in this one, which I like, and you make your own pico de gallo to go on at the very end. Where it falls a little short, in my opinion, is the fiesta rub. I think it's a little over-seasoned. By the time you add everything, it recommends adding another tablespoon at the very end. I kind of wish I would have tasted more before I added that, because it's just a little over-seasoned for my liking. Overall, a really great queso. Just be sure to taste as you go. Always a great tip for cooking. Number two on my rankings is from Healthy Little Peach via Traeger Girls Instagram. This is a very standard and easy to make smoked queso. This is very similar to a lot of recipes you'll see out there where you're just kind of throwing things in the pan, goes on the smoker. That's it, no fuss. I love that it starts with Mexican chorizo as opposed to breakfast sausage. Although, spoiler number one on my list has breakfast sausage. But I think the Mexican chorizo is really good as a nice kick to this. You also include some fresh Roma tomato, which this time of year in the summer. It's great, nice flavor punch with some also raw diced onion in here. I think it's a nice touch instead of just like classic rotel and velvita. You do include diced green chilies and some diced jalapeno. And then there's kind of like a homemade taco seasoning and then classic velvita and pepper jack. For the effort it takes and then how good it is, I think it's very close to number one for me. Number one on my rankings, Meat Church and Traeger Grills. This recipe starts out with hot breakfast sausage, get some velvita, smoked gouda, a couple cans of rotel, cream of mushroom for a cheat code. Don't need to make a cheese sauce, ultra rich, creamy and just super flavorful here. This has like a fourth cup of the Traeger coffee rub, which never really would have thought of using that seasoning for queso, but man, it really works. This is so flavorful and I love like a sausage dip and you kind of get like sausage dip mixed with kind of more like a Tex-Mex queso flavor profile. It's really nice, similar to number two on the list. It's super easy to make, round the sausage in a pan, throw it in here with everything else, let it ride on the smoker, dig in. It's hard to beat that, no need to make tons of other components. Sometimes simple is the best option. Okay, it's time to make the ultimate smoked queso using all the favorite components from today's recipes. We're gonna start out with velvita and pepper jack. Can't go wrong there. We're gonna use hot breakfast sausage like a meat church recipe, as well as four tablespoons of the coffee rub from Traeger. Any rub will work here, but like we learned with Hey Girl Hey, maybe start on the lower end and season to taste at the end if you're unsure about how salty or what the flavor is gonna be like in a rub you've never used before. I wanted a very like fresh vegetable flavor. So instead of using rotel, we're gonna use diced Roma tomatoes, poblano peppers and white onion, and the healthy little peach recipe. I added a little beer at the end. You can also use milk. I'm gonna add it at the beginning and we're gonna do this almost like over the top chili. So we're gonna add all our vegetables in with our cheese. Then we're going to half our seasoning on our breakfast sausage and then a half on our vegetables and cheese. We're gonna add probably half to a cup of beer in here. So we don't get anything stuck to the bottom. The alcohol from that beer is probably about a cup. Has a chance to kind of cook off. This will keep anything from sticking to the pan. Just provide a bit of moisture to the cook. Give that a shake. All that seasoning in there. We're going with a rack over the top. This is inspired from the Hey Girl Hey recipe. Reminds me of kind of over the top chili. So we've got that breakfast sausage. We're gonna break this up in a few smaller pieces. Get all that rub around there. I'm gonna cook this at 250 on the smoker until with this sausage is about 165 internally. Just because we can take a risk on it cooking once we break it up into the case of, I would feel a lot more peace of mind if we made sure we got this thing fully cooked before breaking up and going in there. So I'm gonna tear it up in pretty small pieces here. More surface area, equals more rub, equals more flavor, all right? And then we're going on the smoker, 250. We'll check back in when all this cheese is melted. That sausage is fully cooked. We'll crumble it up, mix everything together. Can't wait to get into this. After about two hours, the sausage should be fully cooked and ready to go into the case. So you can push this through a wire rack or throw in a heat-proof glove and break it up with your hands into small pieces. Stir this in. You shouldn't need any extra liquid. But if you do, just add a splash of beer or milk. Mix everything together. I would smoke this for another 30 minutes or so just to let all those flavors get to know one another. And I would also add in some freshly chopped cilantro, kind of like meat church. And that's it. You're ready to serve and hope you enjoy this one.