We taste-tested seven salsa con quesos you’re likely to find at your local supermarket or online. To find the very best one, we sampled each without knowing which was which. We crowned two winners: On the Border Monterey Jack Queso and Trader Joe’s White Queso Dip.
There are two main types of jarred queso: salsa con queso and queso blanco. Salsa con queso is a gooey, yellow cheese dip studded with chile peppers, tomatoes, and onions, while queso blanco is typically milder and features white cheeses like white cheddar or Monterey Jack. Each has its time and place, but if you’re in a queso blanco mood, we’ve got you covered.
To find the best queso blanco, we taste-tested seven you’re likely to find at your local supermarket and online. We poured each sauce into a bowl, heated it, and served it with tortilla chips. After tasting our way through the sauces, we tabulated the results and crowned two overall winners we’d be happy to serve at our own get-togethers.
The Criteria
The best versions of queso blanco are rich, well-seasoned, and balanced in heat. The dip should be cheesy, with a note of peppers, such as jalapeños, bell peppers, or other chiles. It should be savory, not tangy (a common flavor in jarred products due to preservatives), and while chile heat is welcome, it shouldn’t be so hot that the creamy cheese flavor is lost. Queso blanco should have a rich dairy flavor from the milk, cream, and cheeses used, such as Monterey Jack or white cheddar. It should not be thin or watery, nor should it be gloppy. Rather, it should be thick and velvety enough to easily scoop up with a tortilla chip.
Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez
Overall Winners
The Best Spicy Queso Blanco: On the Border Monterey Jack Queso
Texture-wise, this queso fit the Goldilocks bill for our tasters: It was thick enough to coat our chips with a glossy sheen while remaining pourable, but wasn’t so thin that it dripped off the chip before we could eat it. This was the spiciest queso blanco we tried, featuring jalapeños prominently. “I taste cheese, I taste chiles. Heat is good on this one. I think it’s good,” wrote our editorial director, Daniel. Our associate visuals director, Amanda, thought it was balanced, with a flavor that reminded her of “movie theater nacho cheese.” With its processed cheese flavor—which wasn’t unwelcome!—this dip also reminded our associate culinary editor, Laila, of nacho cheese. As for our visuals editor, Jessie, they found it “a little salty, a little spicy,” which isn’t a bad thing at all when describing queso blanco.
The Best Cheesy Queso Blanco: Trader Joe’s White Queso Dip
This queso had a thick, glossy texture that reminded Laila—who described this offering as “very mild” and “smooth”—of Kraft spreadable cheese. I enjoyed the complexity and tanginess of both the white cheddar and Monterey Jack used in this dip. Though Daniel thought this queso blanco was merely fine, our other tasters agreed it was a mild, versatile dip with a distinct cheesiness that would make it great for pairing with other snacks.
The Contenders
- 365 by Whole Foods Market Organic White Queso
- Good & Gather Queso Blanco
- On the Border Monterey Jack Queso
- Pace Medium Queso Blanco
- Tostitos Queso Blanco Dip
- Trader Joe’s White Queso Dip
- Wegmans Queso Dip
Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez
Key Takeaways and Conclusion
Our favorite dips had a subtly tangy, creamy richness that made them easy to dip and scoop with tortilla chips. One of our favorite queso blancos, On the Border Monterey Jack Queso, is a shelf-stable option. It’s made with nonfat milk and Monterey Jack Cheese, with prominent heat coming from jalapeños. The dip also contains sodium citrate and sodium alginate, emulsifying salts that help processed cheeses melt into a smooth, creamy sauce.
Our other favorite queso, Trader Joe’s White Queso Dip, had minimal heat and a pleasant cheese flavor. Its first ingredient is white cheddar cheese. (According to the Trader Joe’s website, white cheddar cheese apparently makes up half of the queso blanco.) Unlike our other winner, this item is perishable and must be refrigerated. While this queso also includes jalapeños and green and red bell peppers, its savory, tangy cheddar cheese flavor is what stood out to our testers. It uses cornstarch for thickness and, like our other winner, uses sodium citrate to create a smooth, gooey emulsion.
Overall, our two winning brands of queso blanco hit all of the notes we were looking for. They’re scoopable and cheesy, with vegetal, peppery notes from a variety of chiles used. So if you’re too busy making Buffalo wings, jalapeño poppers, and every other dip under the sun on Super Bowl Sunday, consider reaching for the store-bought stuff. Just don’t forget to heat them up!
