Nacho cheese isn’t made from one specific type of cheese or blend. The recipe differs from company to company, says Peggy Armstrong of the International Dairy Foods Association via Food & Wine. Aurora Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for PepsiCo (parent company of Doritos), says Doritos’ nacho cheese combines cheddar and Romano. Old El Paso’s nacho cheese is cheddar and blue. So, there’s no taxonomic classification for that lush golden tidal wave you dump out of an aluminum can and onto that eager pile of hint-of-lime tortilla chips.
General Mills spokesperson Mike Siemienas told Bloomberg that nacho cheese “really is based on what consumers are used to and what they believe nacho cheese flavor is.” The comment inspires more questions than answers. “Nacho cheese is whatever you want it to be” isn’t exactly what consumers might expect or want to hear from one of the largest food manufacturers in the U.S. market. But, Frito Lay makes a line of “Munchies” Nacho Cheese Sandwich Crackers, which sort of encapsulates what Siemienas might have meant.
It’s fitting that nacho cheese enjoys the same universality and ambiguity as nachos. A person named Ignacio Anaya is credited with first inventing nachos in 1943, according to Mental Floss and Adán Medrano. But, since Anaya didn’t seek a patent, nachos are in the public domain; they belong to everybody. They’re your nachos, my nachos, our nachos — and nacho cheese is (technically speaking) whatever your heart tells you it is.
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