Cottage Cheese Queso is a high protein dip that’s ready in 5 minutes. It’s cheesy, creamy and goes well with chips or vegetables for the ultimate healthy snack or appetizer!
If you love this queso dip, you’ll also enjoy cottage cheese ranch dip and Greek yogurt taco dip.
As soon as I spotted a viral cottage cheese queso dip on TikTok and Instagram, I knew I had to try it. But every time I heated it up, it would curdle and separate. After some trial and error, I finally found a way to keep cottage cheese queso whole and creamy.
My oldest son loved it! And those toppings are a must! I can already see this being a lifesaver for snacks or a last-minute appetizer.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Tastes like traditional queso: Creamy, cheesy, warm, and gooey, it’s an out-of-this-world tasting dip.
- Quick and easy: Just blend 4 ingredients, then microwave it and your high protein cottage cheese queso is ready!
- High in protein: Adding cottage cheese to queso makes this dip protein-packed without changing the taste.
- Versatile: Dunk it with chips or veggies, or pour over tacos, nachos, and burrito bowls for extra flavor fun!
Reader’s Review
I made this cottage cheese queso for Memorial Day barbecue and it was a huge hit. Thank you for sharing your recipe!
Jenna
Ingredients for Cottage Cheese Queso
You only need 4 simple ingredients, then you have chips and optional toppings.
- Cottage cheese: The star of the show in many of my latest high protein recipes. I used 2% fat but any fat percentage works. Low fat cottage cheese will create a lighter dip, while full fat makes it extra creamy.
- Shredded cheese: Go for real shredded cheese over packaged, it melts better. I used cheddar cheese for classic flavor, but Tex Mex cheese with jalapeno adds spice, or try pepper jack cheese for extra zing.
- Milk: Helps create a smooth, creamy texture. Use your milk of choice, I used almond milk.
- Taco seasoning: Store-bought or homemade taco seasoning is good.
- Toppings: I topped our dip with tomatoes, fresh cilantro, jalapenos, and red onion.
- Tortilla chips: Chips and queso were made for each other!
How to Make Cottage Cheese Queso
You need a high speed blender or food processor to make this dip. See notes about adding milk in Tips section below to make sure the mixture blends.
- Combine ingredients: In a blender or food processor, combine cottage cheese, shredded cheddar, milk, and taco seasoning.
- Blend: Blend cottage cheese until smooth, scraping down the sides as needed, and add more milk if required.
- Warm it up: Pour whipped cottage cheese mixture into a medium microwave-safe bowl. Microwave it twice in intervals of 15-20 seconds, stirring halfway through and again at the end.
- Add toppings: Sprinkle garnishes you enjoy like chopped tomatoes, jalapeno, red onion, and cilantro on top and serve right away.
Tips for Best Results
Here are my tried and true recipe tips to achieve cottage cheese queso dip with perfect texture.
- Adjust milk amount: Milk is added to make sure the mixture blends. You might need to add a different amount depending on the strength of your kitchen appliance. I ended up adding 4 tablespoons in my Blendtec and 7 tablespoons in my Ninja blender.
- If you use Vitamix: You might not need to add milk at all as it’s quite powerful and the included stick helps you to blend it. Adjust the consistency as you go.
- Don’t heat it on the stove: In my experience, even 20 seconds simmered in the pot will cause whey in cheese to separate. Also don’t use the oven!
- Shred your cheese: It melts better which is crucial with such a short amount of heating up time in this recipe.
- Adjust spiciness: Season to taste with more taco seasoning, chili powder or even by adding diced fresh or jarred jalapenos.
How to Serve
The toppings add a very nice extra flavor to the queso, I highly recommend not to skip them. You could also top it with pico de gallo, green chilies, or extra shredded cheese.
Then serve it up as an appetizer or snack alongside your favorite tortilla chips or crisp vegetables like carrots, cucumber, celery, or bell peppers. Queso is also perfect for dunking baked tacos.
Cheese is a taco essential! So go ahead and drizzle queso as a sauce over ground beef tacos, fish tacos, chicken burritos, or even air fryer nachos.
How to Store and Reheat
Store: Pour leftovers into an airtight container and store in the refrigerator for 2-3 days.
Be careful reheating leftover queso with cottage cheese because cottage cheese curdles quickly. Microwave in two 20 second increments, stir in between. Avoid reheating on the stovetop as it’s more prone to curdling.
Freeze: Queso will become watery and separate so do not freeze.
FAQs
You can make this queso dip without a microwave only if you keep it cold and don’t heat it up, which honestly still tastes really good!
You can skip cheddar cheese and add 3-4 tablespoons of nutritional yeast.
Possibly ricotta cheese, then you might need less milk. Or farmer’s cheese. Greek yogurt will make it too thin and too tangy.
More Dip Recipes to Try
- Healthy 7 layer dip
- Whipped feta board
- Burrata dip
- Olive oil bread dip
- Guacamole
- Garlic hummus
- Sweet potato hummus
- Greek yogurt guacamole
- Salsa guacamole
Cottage Cheese Queso Dip
Equipment
Video
Ingredients
- 1 cup cottage cheese, I used 2%
- 1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
- 1/4 cup milk, more if necessary (I used almond milk)
- 2 teaspoons taco seasoning
- Tomato, jalapeno, cilantro, red onion, finely chopped, for topping
- Tortilla chips, for serving
Instructions
- In a high speed blender or food processor, add cottage cheese, cheddar cheese, milk and taco seasoning. Process until smooth, pausing and scraping the walls with spatula and adding more milk, if necessary.
- Transfer to a medium microwave safe bowl and microwave 2 times in 15-20 seconds increments, stirring once in the middle and once at the end.
- Top with chopped tomato, jalapeno, red onion and cilantro. Serve immediately with tortilla chips or fresh veggies.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Can this be frozen????
No.
I made this cottage cheese queso for Memorial Day barbecue and it was a huge hit. Thank you for sharing your recipe!
So nice of you to say, so happy you loved it! Thank you for the rating!