Nacho Nacho Man... I want to be a Nacho Man

Now picture a large bearded man shimmying and spinning around.

With that, I give you :

Nachos. 

I'm not going to hold your hand. They are freaking nachos. You lay down chips, throw some cheese, and make it hot and melty. I think there are chimpanzees in the wild who make nachos from leaves and cheese. Don't ask where a monkey gets cheese, you don't want this answer.

What am I going to do? Instead I'm going to walk you through how to not make your nachos suck. I mean, you would think this wasn't possible, right? But cheap cheap cheese and boring chips sucks. Unless you're drunk, and then a cardboard box with what might be cheese is freaking incred-e-balls.

So there are some tricks to nachos.

• Season that chip
• Pick a good cheese
• Add a few veggies and/or fruit
• Don't bake your meat 
• Citrus is your friend.
• Lay-yers.
• Don't cook it too long!

This is simple come to life. So lets break it down:

Seasoning is going to save your face. A little granulated garlic sprinkled around? Awesome. Some pepper, cayenne, chili powder? Totally. Just, don't go over board. 

Cheese should be simple. Grab something that melts. But I honestly love to either shred my own cheddar, colby, asadero, anything that melts good. Blend it! The generic pre-shredded Mexican Blend? Not a bad option! Really. In most cases it's got a good base to it that'll take seasoning well and melt without burning the chips in the process. 

Fruits and Veggies are great things to sneak in. Green onion, slides and spread about, you can run the gambit on the colors of peppers. Those sweet peppers they sell that are all colorful. Avocados, pineapples, shallots, normal onion, garlic cloves. They key here is don't over power the cheese. You want everything to be friends. 

I cook my meat separate. This seems odd. You can brown it, toss it over the top, and let it bake. But I prefer to cook my meat in a skillet while everything else bakes. I then toss it over when everything is hot. It gets it's own seasoning, I normally make the meat more savory than spicy, because I often use things like chili or cayenne already on the chips. This gives a layer of flavor, and saves your chips from baking the grease from the meat in, where while skillet cooking you can repeatedly drain that off. 

Citrus. Seriously I love lemons and limes. The juice from these is magic when lightly squirted over the chips. It soaks in just a bit, bakes, gives the chips flavor, brings out flavors from other things. Then you can get fancy. Ever had nachos with a bit of orange or blood orange flavoring? Mangos? Yes please. 

Layer it. Don't just hope your cheese and spices will soak in - They don't. A layer of chips, season and cheese, a layer of chips, season and cheese. It's like Nacho Lasagna and it's worth the few extra moments of effort. Gives more bites of cheese and flavor and far fewer naked chipy-whips.

 Cooking it.This is, to some, a science. To me? I cook it until the cheese melts, the top layer gets a slightly grilled cheese look. I cook at about 350/375 and it normally takes me just long enough to bake it as it does for me to cook my meat.  

Nachos are easy. The problem is they are easy to mess up and make boring, or suck.

Enjoy them, think a bit about what tastes good, and melt some yum.