Nacho Cheddar Sauce.. My mouth is salivating as I think about it. There’s only one problem. Melting fresh cheddar cheese isn’t as easy as it sounds. It tends to split and get grainy when too much heat is applied, when too much is added at once, and so on… Who knew there were so many rules to melting cheese!!
The reason this happens is because cheese is a delicate emulsion of fat and water held together by proteins and as you heat your cheese up the proteins begin to denature. The more moisture you have the better your cheese will melt (generally speaking) and the ooey gooey melted chhese that’s on pizzas or hamburgers is a result of the protein breaking down causing the structure to begin to sag. Cheese with lower moisture levels, like aged cheese will have a much harder time doing this as the bond is much weaker. This means that the possibility of that emulsion breaking is more likely.
What if I told you that you could add a very specific type of salt to your cheese to stop this from happening. This salt acts as an emulsifier and keeps the particles bound properly regardless of the moisture content.
This isn’t any ordinary salt as it’s not going to make your cheese sauce salty. It’s a salt from citric acid called sodium citrate and can easily be made by combining baking soda and citric acid in some water then cooking it down. There are a few websites that show you how to do it but for me I just go to Amazon and get a few pounds.
This stuff is amazing. Talk about a nacho cheese game changer. Forget about nachos for a minute and think about all of the possibilities. This salt can literally turn any cheese into the most luxurious, velvety, creamy, cheese ever! Bleu cheese, Gouda, feta, Munster, Swiss, you name it. Every cheese I’ve used it on it’s worked like a charm. You can even tweak the amount of sodium citrate you add to affect the density of the cheese so you can even make your very own cheese block if you want to. In a later post I’ll show you how I turned regular cheddar cheese into an amazing block of Black Garlic Guinness Cheddar Cheese. All with the help of Sodium Citrate.
It is super easy to use and once you start playing with it you’ll get the hang of it. The bottom line is this. The more liquid you add the runnier your cheese will be. The less liquid you add the more dense your sauce will be.
I’ve been incorporating this cool ingredient into my broccoli cheddar soups, mac and cheese (WHAT!!!!), all sorts of recipe that call for cheddar to be added. You will never have a grainy cheese no matter how hot you heat it. I’ve been using this for years and still to this day when I melt my fresh cheeses I am amazed at how it works. Science, Mr. White!!
Enjoy the video and check out the recipe below..
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Cheddar Cheese Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 lb extra sharp cheddar cheese or any cheese you want
- 1 cup of water or beer, ck stock, milk it doesn't matter what liquid you use. If you use beer it will change the flavor a little bit which could be a good thing
- 1 tsp sodium citrate
Instructions
- Grate your cheddar cheese and set to the side
- In a small pot bring your liquid to a gentle boil and add the sodium citrate
- Stir well to dissolve the sodium citrate. Once dissolved add the grated cheese to your liquid and reduce the heat to medium. Stir continuously until the cheese sauce is melted
- Add more liquid for a thinner cheese sauce.
- If your cheese is having a difficult time coming together add more sodium citrate to your mixture. (I would add 1/4 -1/2 tsp per pound of cheese that you used)
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What’s the ratio of cheese to liquid to sodium citrate? Say for example I have a regular 2 cup bag of shredded cheese.
It varies depends on the consistency that you want your sauce. But a good place to start is 1 pound of cheese to 1 cup of liquid, to 1 tsp of sodium citrate. If you add more liquid the cheese sauce will be thinner.
What happens when this gets cold? Does it stay in the sauce form or does this become a semi-solid block?
It firms back up (semisolid)
And what if I wanted it to stay thick and liquid, like mustard. Do I just add more of the sodium citrate?
Add more liquid. It thickens as it cools. It’s a funny balance of experimenting.
How would you make a cheese sauce for macaroni and cheese using sodium citrate?
Check out this video I made here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rCckDNFnw0
How long will this keep in the fridge? Can it be frozen?
You can keep this in the fridge for 4-5 days. It can be frozen..
Does the sodium citrate make it shelf stable?
no
Can you use tarteric acid instead of citric acid to make the sodium citrate?
Im not sure. If you do it won’t be called sodium citrate, it would be called something else. Not sure if it would do the same thing though
That will make sodium tartrate, which /is/ a known emulsifying salt but it’s also much less effective than trisodium citrate.
Also I wouldn’t really try making it unless you enjoy chemistry or are in a pinch. The kind you want is /tri/ sodium citrate, and I think that the kind you get from just mixing baking soda and citric acid is probably going to be /di/ or maybe /mono/ sodium citrate. (there are 3 kinds of sodium citrate) Disodium /will/ work but it is a bit less effective, so I’d just get a bag of food-grade trisodium citrate from online. (Commercially, the stuff is produced using sodium hydroxide (lye) or sodium carbonate (washing soda)).
Other things that can work (albeit less effectively) are lemon juice (natural source of citric acid) and baking soda, and sodium acetate which can be made from vinegar and baking soda.
* disclaimer: I am not at all a chemist, but the question took me back to high-school. thanks for the unexpected ride!
Great answer. Never took a chemistry class, even in high school, but I find playing with food to be so much fun!
I made as directed using chicken broth for the liquid. It NEVER really thickened. I added another 1/4 tsp. but still was very soupy!
This cheese sauce has never failed me. I’ve used it with beer, milk, water, stock, you name it. Here is the recipe again. 1 cup of liquid, 1 tsp of sodium citrate, and 1 pound of fresh cheese (not pre grated cheese). If your cheese has a coating of corn starch or some other additive it might not work. Dissolve the sodium citrate in the liquid and bring to a simmer. Slowly add the freshly grated cheese to the liquid and continuie to cook on a medium heat. Stirring often you will watch that cheese literally melt before your eyes and turn into an awesome sauce. What type of cheese did you use?
I had the same exact problem with the chicken broth. followed directions exactly. never turned into a sauce, just a melted cheese separated from chicken broth
Add more sodium citrate. That fixes your issue. I would add 1/4-1/2 tsp per pound of cheese that you used.
Yea this was very tasty. I made it with milk, a little jalapeno, a little jalapeno pickling juice and some cayenne – and it was fantastic.
Ugg, I just wasted 2 pounds of cheese trying this recipe. I doubled the ingredients. 1 cup water and 1 cup milk, 2 tsps sodium citrate and 2 lbs sharp cheddar. I added the cheese slowly to the simmering liquid and thought it worked until it didn’t. It separated into milky liquid and gloppy cheese on the bottom as it cooled. I reheated and used a immersion blender and it did the same thing. No clue why it didn’t work.
Oh No!!! So weird. If you haven’t thrown it out yet add another tsp or 2 of sodium citrate and heat it up. Was the cheese coated in some sort of powder or did you have to grate it..
I did just that.. I poured the liquid that had accumulated on top of the cheese back into the pan and added 1/2 cup more water and 1 more tsp of sodium citrate then added the blobs of cheese slowly back into the liquid. It stayed together!! It is still slightly slightly grainy but definitely usable. I wonder if the use of Carbmaster milk instead of whole milk had anything to do with it? Probably not tho since any liquid should work. I think is was the ratio of the sodium citrate to cheese that was the culprit. Next time I will use 3 tsps to 2 lbs of cheese and probably use less liquid for a thicker sauce. Thanks for the quick reply!! I am bruised but not broken!! 😜
Mil contains proteins which will interfere with the emulsion. This recipe really requires water or beer to be effective.
This recipe works with milk. We use milk to make our cheese sauce for macaroni. Here’s the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rCckDNFnw0 Go to the 2:15 minute mark
I have found that sharper cheddar requires more sodium citrate.
This recipe turned into a seized, gloppy, inedible mess after cooling and reheating. I shouldn’t have taken a chance on this for my work potluck. I made sure to stir it constantly while melting the cheese in. I should have tested it first!
Every cheese acts differently. When it doubt add a little extra sodium citrate and you will be fine and yes, you should have tested it first😅. We make this literally every other week with 50 pounds of cheese at a time. The only issue I’ve ever had is that every once in a while, I have to add a little extra sodium citrate to get the cheese to set up properly. Other than that it’s locked it😉
If you used pre-shreaded cheese, I can see that happening. There is some anti-caking stuff in there. Use a black of cheese that you grate yourself
I tried this and it works. Just as written.
Attention Texans: this will make a spot-on queso dip. I used water and pepper jack block cheese. I shredded the cheese, added it to the simmering water/salt a small handful at at time, and it melted like a dream.
It was bland with just the water and a little thick, so I added some spices and thinned it out with a splash of milk. Perfect queso blanco dip in the same amount of time it takes to melt Velveeta and Ro-Tel.
From serious eats:
4 tsp sodium citrate
3 C water
1.5 Lbs grated cheese
1 tsp hot sauce
1/2 tsp mustard powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
Enough for 16 Oz, pasta.
I have been using variations on this recipe for a few years.
***** IMHO
https://www.seriouseats.com/sodium-citrate-baked-mac-and-cheese
I have used several brands of pre shredded cheese as well as home shredded cheese and I haven’t noticed any difference.
Mine didn’t fully emulsify with just 1 tsp of sodium citrate. Still had a milky layer on top and the cheese was not completely smooth, even a bit rubbery. Another tsp of sodium citrate did the trick.
Nice.
Regarding the ratio’s online:
2% – 4% Sodium Citrate of total weight of cheese.
Here we have 1 lb Cheese (16 oz) which is ~453.6 grams
2% of cheese weight is ~9.0 grams
9.0 grams of Sodium Citrate is ~2 tsp (1 tsp = 4.969 grams)
This recipe only uses about 1% Sodium Citrate to Cheese Weight..
I would be interested to see if the amount of liquid plays a role in the actual chemistry between the Sodium Citrate and Cheese besides just the solidity.
Has anyone used heavy cream for the liquid?
Heavy cream works for this recipe
That’s a great content, exactly what I was looking for. Thank captain marvel brie leather jacket you and continue doing a good job!
I used almond milk, smoked gouda, and colby jack cheese both shredded by hand. The most amazing cheese sauce I’ve had the pleasure of making. A piece of advice for those having a hard time to get it to fully emulsify or cooperate: keep stirring. I was frustrated because I had a thick, clumpy, melted layer on bottom and milk on top. they wouldn’t emulsify. I stirred for a couple more minutes and it just came together suddenly. Don’t give up.
Thank you for this comment. It had separated on me and I had given up.
If the cheese curdles and becomes a clumpy mass at the bottom of a pool of liquid, chances are you overheated the sauce. If possible, keep the liquid right at 167 degrees F and cook gently for about 15 minutes. Pull it off the heat and finish with an immersion blender. The result will be an amazingly smooth sauce.
Nice tip!!
The cheese sauce turn out a little thinner than I would have preferred but my problem was that there was a bitter taste to the sauce. I have made it another time with different cheese and still have gotten a slight bitter taste. Is there something I am doing wrong or is there something that can be added to eliminate the bitter taste?
Are you using the ratio of 1 tsp to 1 pound of cheese to 1 cup of liquid? There’s not supposed to be a bitter taste. Maybe change the brand of the Sodium Citrate