Chili Cheese Fries
Chips under beef chilli and melted cheese, eaten with a fork before the bottom layer surrenders. Forty-five minutes.
Photograph credit: Mmm... chili cheese fries by jeffreyw · CC BY 2.0 · Flickr
The chilli has to be thick enough to sit on the chips rather than run through them — simmer it down until a spoon dragged across the pan leaves a track. And the chips must be twice-cooked: once at 140°C / 285°F to cook through, once at 190°C / 375°F to armour the outside. A single fry gives you a chip that is soft before the chilli even arrives.
What People Ask
How long does Chili Cheese Fries take to make?
15 minutes of preparation and 30 minutes of cooking, plus 15 minutes of cooling, so allow 1 hour from start to finish. The recipe serves 4.
The Method for Chili Cheese Fries
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Rinse the chips in cold water, then dry them completely on a cloth.
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Heat the frying oil to 140°C / 285°F and fry the chips for 6 minutes, until soft but pale. Lift out and cool 15 minutes.
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Meanwhile heat the chilli oil and brown the mince for 8 minutes without stirring much.
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Add the onion and cook 5 minutes, then the garlic and tomato purée for 2 minutes.
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Add the cumin, paprika, oregano and cayenne and cook 30 seconds.
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Add the tomatoes, beans and salt and simmer 20 minutes, until a spoon leaves a track.
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Raise the oil to 190°C / 375°F and fry the chips again for 4 minutes, until deep gold and hard.
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Drain and salt them, then pile into an ovenproof dish.
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Spoon the chilli over and scatter the cheese on top.
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Grill 4 minutes until bubbling, then top with spring onion, soured cream and jalapeños.
Related guide: Prep, cook and total time.
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Tips That Matter
- Twice-cooked chips, always.
- Chilli thick enough to leave a spoon track.
- Assemble and grill at the last minute.
Ingredient Swaps
- Out of spring onions? A small regular onion, finely sliced, or a few chives stirred in at the end both cover the job.
- Dried chilli flakes can stand in for the chilli. Heat varies a great deal between chillies and between jars, so start with a small pinch and add more to taste.
- An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.
Serve It With
Cold beer · Pickled jalapeños · A basketball game
Storage
None. This is a dish with a ten-minute lifespan.
What's in a Serving
No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (how much frying oil the food takes up cannot be known from the recipe). Why some recipes have none.
Your notes on this recipe
Cooked this? Keep a note for next time
Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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