Applebee's Beer Cheese Dip

Home reconstruction

The beer choice decides this dish, and the instinct — reach for something with character — is the wrong one.

Hop bitterness concentrates as the beer reduces. An IPA is pleasantly bitter at drinking strength; cooked down into a small volume of cheese sauce, that bitterness has nowhere to go and the dip tastes acrid.

Use a lager, a pilsner or a mild ale. Something you would describe as refreshing rather than interesting. It contributes malt sweetness and a yeasty depth without bringing bitterness along.

Dark stouts and porters are the other trap: they bring roasted, coffee-like flavours that fight the cheese.

Cook the alcohol off first

Simmer the beer on its own for three or four minutes before anything else goes in. Two reasons.

Alcohol tastes harsh in a dairy sauce and a good share of it evaporates in that time.

More practically, alcohol destabilises dairy emulsions. Adding beer straight into a cheese sauce makes it far more likely to split.

Cheese off the heat, again

Cheddar splits above about 80°C. Take the pan off before the cheese goes in and add it a handful at a time.

This is the same rule as every other cheese sauce on this site, and it is the single most common reason a home version goes grainy.

Grate it from a block

Bagged shreds are coated in anti-caking starch that stops them fusing, which leaves a slightly gritty sauce however careful you are.

What you need

• 330 ml lager or pilsner
• 3 tbsp butter
• 3 tbsp plain flour
• 240 ml whole milk
• 300 g mature cheddar, grated
• 100 g cream cheese
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• salt and black pepper

Method

1. Simmer the beer alone for 3–4 minutes to cook off the alcohol. Set aside.
2. Melt the butter, stir in the flour, and cook 1 minute.
3. Whisk the milk in gradually, then the beer.
4. Simmer gently 3–4 minutes until thickened.
5. Off the heat. Cream cheese in first, whisked smooth.
6. Cheddar a handful at a time, whisking each in.
7. Mustard, Worcestershire, garlic powder, paprika and cayenne. Season.

Cream cheese before cheddar

Cream cheese contains stabilisers and its own emulsifiers, and getting it in first gives the cheddar a more forgiving base to melt into.

It also adds a slight tang that reads as "restaurant" and thickens the dip without more flour.

If it splits

Take it off the heat. Add a splash of cold milk and whisk hard. This works often enough to try before starting again.

If that fails, a teaspoon of cornflour slurried in cold water, whisked in and brought briefly back to a simmer, will usually pull it together — at the cost of a slightly heavier texture.

Storing

Five days in the fridge. It sets very firm when cold.

Reheat gently with a splash of milk, stirring constantly, and never let it boil.

It does not freeze — the emulsion breaks on thawing.