We’ve tried to hide it, but we’re obsessed with nachos. Or, one of us is (for the other, it’s pizza). We just love the excuse to eat with our hands, especially if there’s gooey cheese involved. But it will probably not surprise you to find that in many of the places where we have lived, nachos are hard to come by. Like, pretty much all of them. Luckily, we’re not purists. Having ordered nachos from menus on six continents over several decades, we consider ourselves well-qualified to discuss the subject of the international nacho. We’ve also made them ‘at home’ in well over a dozen countries, with varying outcomes. We tell all, so you can learn from our mistakes!
Nachos: Definitions
Nachos are a Tex-Mex dish, originating, we have learned, in Coahuila, Mexico. The original ingredients of the dish were chips, cheese, and pickled jalapeños. But there are all kinds of fancy variants, all over the world. Here are the basics, as we understand them. Without the below components we are not willing to call it a nacho, and these are things we always include in our home-made versions. Which is not to say they are universally agreed-upon: we have seen some stuff that still gives us nightmares.
Key Ingredients
- Corn-based tortilla chips: fried or baked. Sometimes super-greasy. But many places in the world use Doritos. The first time we experienced this was in Kerala, India, on Christmas day, 2017. At first, we were dismayed. But they were fantastic. (That’s why you travel, right? To discover the many brilliant things other people do in the world, especially with food.)
- Tomato-based salsa: in its most disappointing form, this is ketchup (see our Mongolian pizza post to learn how this makes us feel). But even basic nachistas usually put forth more effort, including onions, peppers, tomatoes, and a bit of flavouring. (Tomatillo salsa is also very much ok by us!) At home, you’ll need to drain off or cook off the excess moisture, because the saddest thing in the world is a soggy nacho.
- Something else: ground beef, black beans, seitan, chicken, chili. It doesn’t have to be a protein, although we prefer it that way.
- Cheese or a cheese-like substance: the key here is melting, so you want something like cheddar or cotija. Melting is, in fact, so important that we have sometimes been driven to make nachos with mozzarella or swiss, which are, palate-wise, wrong for the job. We are not ourselves partial to ‘cheese sauce’ because it is so profoundly unhealthy. But some of our best friends are, and we respect that.
- Heat, in the form of jalapeños, raw or pickled, or hot sauce, or chili powder. Pickled jalapeños are our favourites, because we’re traditional like that. You want something to cut through the grease. In Kotor, we found a cheddary-looking cheese with sambal chilis, and it proved to work unexpectedly well!
Beyond the Basics: Nacho Variations
There are, of course, a million directions to go from there. When we have the option, we will always add the following:
- Avocados, in any form. Guacamole is usually too complicated for home use, given that we have to assemble most of the other components. But sliced avocado does just fine.
- Scallions, chives, or onions (or garlic) in any form.
- Lime, which serves some of the same functions as heat, to make the dish less greasy so that you can eat more of it. And that is obviously the goal for nachos.
- Region-appropriate spices: oregano, cilantro, cumin; anything from the south-of-the-border areas will do.
- Olives, ideally black although we have used green. We’ll even admit to using half-sour pickles or cornichons in cases of emergency (i.e. when we can’t find pickled jalapenos).
- Corn, usually from a can or frozen. Controversial, but we stand by it.
Sour creamis never on our list. One of us actively doesn’t like it. The other doesn’t think it tastes like much, even when it’s real sour cream. (And, in restaurants, it often isn’t.)Lettuceis also sometimes on nachos, but it’s always iceberg. Feh. Why bother?
Further Variations on a Theme
We’ve eaten poutine nachos. Barbeque nachos (BBQ sauce and sometimes pulled pork). Tuna nachos (sashimi on fried wonton crisps with wasabi and radish). Bacon nachos, served on tater-tots. Ballpark nachos (chips with pumped-on chemical cheeze sauce). We’ve even eaten ‘dessert nachos’. There are all fine. Some of them are better than fine. But please, please, don’t expect us to call them nachos.
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