What To Do If Your Cheese Fondue Is Breaking

Whether you go for the bread or the asparagus, the peppers or the potatoes, cheese fondue welcomes an assortment of foods. Yet while the dip's options range, the nature of the fondue remains the same. In making your own, you want to aim for a smooth and silky texture — rather than a fondue that clumps or breaks. Achieving this desired consistency requires some finesse, but even if all else fails, a broken cheese fondue doesn't mean game over. Rather, you can easily remedy a few lumps and clumps with the help of one particular kitchen tool: the immersion blender. 

Once your fondue begins to break, simply pull it off the heat — and pull out your immersion blender. While you can't go back in time, the blender is the next best thing; it'll get your fondue back to your desired level of velvetiness. Once you've used the blender, all you have to do is put your fondue back on the stove and continue cooking as though no breakage ever occurred.

However, if you'd rather prevent your fondue from breaking in the first place, there's yet another guideline to remember. While cheese fondue recipes deviate, they could all benefit from some added patience — and a consistent, low temperature. 

To keep your cheese from reaching its breaking point, exercise patience. If you're hungry, you may be tempted to put your fondue on a high-heat setting. That way, you can enjoy your cheese all the faster. Doing so, however, is doing your fondue a disservice. You want your melted cheese to stay smooth, which means low and slow is the name of the game. 

Once you add cheese to the stove, aim for a temperature of about 140 to 160 degrees Fahrenheit — and don't add all your cheese at once. Rather, you want to incorporate your cheese into your fondue a little bit at a time so it can melt, yielding a unified mixture. Once one batch of cheese melts, you can add more and more, until you've used up all of your cheese. Oh, and while many recipes rely on Swiss, you can experiment beyond the fondue classic. Just make sure to choose one that has a high level of moisture and a distinct flavor. 

Of course, if you forget any of those steps, cheese fondue remains a forgiving dish. You need either patience or an immersion blender to become a fondue expert.