Why Cheese Can Be A Red Flag At Mexican Restaurants

As Mexico's northern neighbor, the U.S. was one of the first nations to fall in love with Mexican food. By the mid-1800s, Mexican immigrants had shared traditional recipes in newly erected restaurants and stands. However, these recipes started to change and adapt to American tastes and ingredients. While Mexican restaurants are now a dime a dozen in cities and towns around the U.S., not all of them are as true to Mexican traditions as they might claim.

Tasting Table has provided some of the biggest red flags to look out for when dining at a Mexican restaurant, and cheese is an unexpected yet glaring sign of a break from Mexican traditions. Traditional Mexican cuisine uses a variety of native types of cheese, and uses them very sparingly. So both the type of cheese used and the types of dishes that feature cheese is a telling sign of how traditional or not the Mexican food restaurant is.

If your enchiladas, tacos, beans, or tostadas are smothered in melted cheese or sprinkled with shredded cheddar or Monterey jack, you're eating Mexican-American food. Traditional Mexican street tacos consist of the protein and a topping of cilantro and diced onions. Cheese, Mexican or otherwise, doesn't factor into it. Enchiladas and chiles rellenos in Mexico might be filled with cheese, but there's never melted cheese on top of them. Even well-known cheesy Mexican dishes like quesadillas, queso flameado, and tamales de rajas con queso utilize cheeses native to Mexico, almost all of which are white.

Mexican cheese encompasses a variety of flavors, textures, and regional specialties, each with a specific use in Mexican cooking. Quesadillas, for example, tend to use queso Oaxaca, a mild, easy-melting white cheese that looks and peels like string-cheese. Queso Oaxaca is also used in chiles rellenos and tamales de rajas con queso. Queso Chihuahua, named for the state of its origin, is another melting cheese with a sharper, cheddar-like flavor and texture used in quesadillas and chiles rellenos in the north of Mexico.

Queso panela is a white cheese that's similarly mild, but has a squishy, semi-soft, somewhat squeaky texture meant to be enjoyed fresh. You'll find queso panela as a popular addition to tortas or cheese plates. Queso asadero is a sharper melting cheese with a nice smokiness, often melted in conjunction with queso Oaxaca in the decadent appetizer queso fundido. Both cotija and queso fresco are the crumbly feta look-alikes sprinkled over tostadas, chilaquiles, Mexican street corn, and refried beans. That said, cotija is much saltier than queso fresco.

Cheddar and Monterey jack are American cheeses and, while they pair well with Mexican flavors, they do not exist in Mexico. In fact, the precedence of cheddar or any other type of orange cheese melted or shredded into enchiladas, refried beans, tacos, or chile con queso is the defining characteristic of Tex-Mex. Nachos and bean and cheese burritos are two cheesy dishes that even Mexicans might consider Mexican American.