Smoky, silky smooth, beyond creamy Chipotle Cashew Queso! Made with all pantry ingredients that you just toss in a blender.
Chipotle Cashew Queso
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Life. Changing. This sauce is incredible!!!! Thank you so much for this amazing recipe!
Michelle
Summer Sauce Week is here! Chipotle Cashew Queso is the first in our lineup of four sauces – click here to see the master list of ALL our favorite sauces!
Smoky, silky smooth, and beyond creamy – this is chipotle cashew queso.
I have good news for you:
- This chipotle cashew business is vegan. (But tastes good universally!)
- It’s is extremely versatile and goes even beyond Mexican-inspired or Tex-Mex recipes to be delicious on almost everything.
- IT COULD NOT BE EASIER TO MAKE.
I will never apologize for sharing REALLY YUMMY recipes that are too easy because easy is where it’s at!
It’s summer, and it’s not a time that we love to be in the kitchen, and can we just please help ourselves out by removing as many barriers to making homemade food as possible right now okay thanks.
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You need five ingredients: cashews, chili powder, salt, a chipotle pepper or two, and diced green chiles (they give it a true queso-y taste).
Blend that gang up until they’re nice and smooth and creamayyy:
And you’re done. You’ve basically made dinner. Get ready for the fun part:
Put it on anything.
- Tacos
- Fajitas
- Nachos
- Roasted corn
- Chips, solo
- Quesadillas
- Rice bowls
- Grilled Southwest-y chicken
(Pictured here on the vegan sheet pan fajitas that are too good and too easy for life. We don’t even deserve their wonderfulness.)
Take out your blender, gather your goods, and keep the chips handy.
It’s chipotle cashew queso time.
Common Questions About Cashew Queso
Can I make this nut-free?
This recipe is dependent on using nuts, so if you need a nut-free alternative, another recipe like this one might be your best bet!
Is this super spicy?
It’s got a little kick, so if you’re super sensitive to spice, you can use half the amount of chipotle pepper.
What if I don’t have a high-powered blender?
It might help to soak the cashew in hot water for 1-2 hours to help soften them.
How long will this keep in the fridge?
It will keep for 2-3 days in the first (but will be gone fast!).
Chipotle Cashew Queso
- Total Time: 10 minutes
- Yield: 6 servings 1x
Description
Smoky, silky smooth, beyond creamy Chipotle Cashew Queso! Made with all pantry ingredients that you just toss in a blender. Top it on tacos, fajitas, nachos and more!
Ingredients
Scale
- 1 cup cashews
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 (4-ounce) can diced green chiles
- 1 chipotle pepper canned in adobo (more to taste)
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (more if your cashews are unsalted)
- optional, for more oomph: 1-2 tablespoons of the chipotle adobo sauce, or 1 teaspoon chili powder
- optional, for more cheeziness: 2-4 tablespoons nutritional yeast
Instructions
- Blend everything together at a high speed until very smooth. Taste and adjust.
- Serve on tacos, fajitas, nachos, rice bowls, grilled chicken and veggies, with straight chips, really ANYTHING. It’s pure smoky, cheezy goodness.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Category: Sauce
- Cuisine: Mexican-Inspired
Keywords: chipotle cashew queso, vegan queso, chipotle queso
One More Thing!
This recipe is part of our Sauces That Make Everything Better roundup. Check it out!
July 13, 2020
Nice to meet you!
I’m Lindsay and I ♡ FOOD. I used to be a teacher, and now making food and writing about it online is my full-time job. I love talking with people about food, and I'm so glad you're here.
Did you make a recipe? Tag @pinchofyum on Instagram so we can find you!
This sounds incredibly good! I bet it would be amazing over some enchiladas. Also, love the idea of adding the nutritional yeast for extra cheesy flavor!
Perfect over enchiladas!
What kind of cashews did you use?
Roasted? Salted? Raw?
I have the same question – what type of cashews? Thanks!
Raw or roasted will work and we like using salted cashews. You may need to just adjust the salt according to taste. 😉
OMG – Made it last night – and my vegan daughter nearly cried. The rest of us non-vegans loved it too. Thank you!
🎉
Had to make this right away. Probably the easiest and tastiest vegan queso I’ve made to this date. I added 4 tablespoons of nutritional yeast, about a teaspoon of garlic powder, and some red pepper flakes and chili powder (couldn’t find chipotle pepper in adobo at my grocery & I like it spicy). This will won’t last long in my house haha thanks for the recipe!!
So happy to hear this, Mikaela!
Please, if you make this and plan to serve it at a party or with people you don’t live with, clearly label that this dip has cashews in it, because someone with a nut allergy could unknowingly eat it and die. You would never suppose nuts were lurking in a queso dip.
So good and possibly the easiest thing I’ve made in months. The consistency is perfect room temperature or even straight from the fridge. Can’t wait to try it on so many things (in addition to my current strategy of eating it with way too many tortilla chips). Thanks for sharing!
So glad you enjoyed this, Andi!
Can you freeze this?
That should work!
Life. Changing. This sauce is incredible!!!! Thank you so much for this amazing recipe!
This queso is SO GOOD. I do eat dairy but have mild lactose intolerance. I can eat this without tummy troubles and it tastes amazing.
So glad to hear it, Melissa!
Just made this and it was delish. I added nutritional yeast and salt to taste. I thought a squeeze of lime would also be good. I doubled it and used a 7 oz can of green chili’s. Nice recipe!
So glad you enjoyed it!
Hi, thanks for your share recipe
1 cup cashews ==> it’s raw or cook cashews?
1/2 cup water
1 (4-ounce) can diced green chiles
1 chipotle pepper canned in adobo (more to taste)
==> i living at asia so it’s hard to get can diced green chiles or chipotle. What can i substitute???
Great question! There aren’t great substitutes out there unfortunately. For the diced green chilies, you could cook (on stove or roast in the oven) a few jalapeno peppers until they’re really soft and then add a splash of lime juice or vinegar to them. For the chipotle peppers, you could simply use a 1/2 to 1 tablespoon of chili powder.
Just made the 12 serving batch of this. It’s absolutely delicious! I added extra chilli so I didn’t need to add chilli powder. It was super easy to make. I used raw cashews and I left them to sit in boiling water for an hour or two to soften them up. The nutritional yeast is amazing in this. Delicious!!
I love this Chipotle Cashew Queso, seems amazing . Can’t wait to try this one . Thanks for sharing with us.
What do you think about substituting another nut for the cashews?
Hi, Annie! A different nut will give this a pretty different taste and texture. We’d recommend making a nut-free version if you want to skip the cashews. Here’s a recipe! https://www.noracooks.com/vegan-cheese-sauce/
Will this work without the chipotle pepper/adobo, just as a nacho cheese Queso/dip? Can’t wait to try it!
This is not only so so good, but amazingly easy. I might never make regular queso again because this is so much easier make and eat as leftovers, and uses ingredients that I often have on hand.
I just made this, and I had to stop, sit down and write about this wonderful vegan cheese. I made a cheese sauce before that was very good, but this chipotle cashew queso is totally by far the ultimate best! The spice level is awesome. I had to make myself STOP tasting it so I would have some left to put on my vegan carne asada tacos. I can’t wait for all of the flavors to my meal to come together and completely dazzle my taste buds! Thank you for such a wonderful recipe! 10 stars out of 5😊
Holy moly, this was so good I made it a second time in ONE DAY! Haha! I used the first batch for vegan enchiladas (cauli/walnut meat) and they were so good my s/o asked me to make more so that he could snack on it throughout the week.
Lindsay – I’m so grateful for you and your heart warming recipes! I know that I can come to POY anytime and find an incredible meal to whip up in no time!