Making Doritos
A recipe so close to the original I’m surprised I’m not getting sued
Let’s make some Doritos! Today’s recipe is all about dat cheesy cheese powder that covers these triangles of gold, by dehydrating our own cheese and frying our own tortillas. With that being said, let’s get started!
INGREDIENTS:
4 oz/100 g cheese of your choice
Half an onion
1 tsp coriander
2 tsp chipotle
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp annatto seed powder
6-8 taco-sized tortillas
vegetable or canola oil
dehydrate THE CHEESE
Alright, let’s start with the aforementioned cheese. We want to begin shredding the cheese - I am using a block of 4 oz or 100 grams. The flavor of Doritos is actually called nacho cheese, which may either be Colby or processed cheese. I decided to use cheddar cheese for a little sharpness and flavor. However, you do you, if you wanna use Velveeta, this is the time for it!
Now that we have the cheese shredded, we need to dehydrate it, and we are going to do this in two steps; firstly, just place the shredded cheese onto a rack and in the dehydrator and let it go for 12-24 hours. At that point, we will have pulled a lot of the moisture out, and the cheese should look like this.
Now, this cheese will be a little oily and we need to sop a little bit of that up using some paper towels. I noticed that, even after using paper towels, my cheese still had some moisture inside - this may be due to the fact that I used a larger shred, which provided a rather large surface. So to alleviate this, I decided to grind the dehydrated cheese into powder using a mortar and pestle.
I then took that cheese powder and placed it back onto a dehydrating tray with some aluminum foil, spreading it out to an even layer. During this dehydration process, I also added some chopped onion to be dehydrated as well - we will use these to help make our nacho powder later.
Place the tray back into the dehydrator and let it go for an additional 8 hours. Now, if you use a smaller shred of cheese you may only need to do this once, but you will have to be the judge of how many times you complete the dehydration process, based on your particular dehydrator, choice of cheese, and the specific shred you use. The goal here is to end up with a cheese that is slightly oily but more or less dry.
Create the cheese powder
Ok, now it’s just a matter of grinding the onions and cheese into a powder fine enough to coat our tortilla chips. Let’s put the onions off to the side and start to grind this cheese first.
At first, I tried to use a blender, which was folly. So in the end I went back to the old school method of mortar and pestle which worked fine, and I collected the ground cheese into a bowl.
ADD THE FLAVOR
Alright, now let’s begin on the onions. Place the dehydrated onions into the mortar and pestle and begin smashing. We want to grind the onions as small as we can get them - don’t worry about the flecks of onion, we will take care of those in a few minutes.
Now add the cheese and mix it all up.
Next let’s add the other ingredients that make up the nacho cheese powder: one teaspoon coriander, although this is kinda optional. Not optional, however, is 2 teaspoons chipotle, and 1 teaspoon cumin. Next, to help make the color more golden, let’s add 1 teaspoon turmeric, and the last ingredient we can add optionally is 1 teaspoon of something called annatto seed powder, which is mostly for color - it will give the powder that characteristic red color that Doritos have.
Alright mix it up and there we go, there is our Dorito powder!
But one last step: we need to strain out any large pieces. Feel free to smash and grind any leftover pieces through the sieve, so as not to waste anything.
MAKE THE CHIPS
Alright, now with a fine nacho cheese powder, it’s time to make the chips.
For this, simply cut up about 6-8 taco-sized tortillas into quarters, place them on a tray and set it of off to the side.
Now heat up a pan or pot to fry the tortillas in. Fill the pan with a neutral oil such as vegetable or canola oil - we don’t need a large amount of oil for this, just make sure to leave enough room so that it doesn’t overflow. We want to heat this oil up until it comes to 350°F | 175°C. Once it does, feel free to add in a test chip.
Once our test chip crisps up nicely, go ahead and add in a few chips in at a time, making sure not to overcrowd these guys. Be careful in how you place them in - remember this is hot oil so splashes here deal damage.
Let them fry on one side for about 4 minutes, then flip em and let them go for another 2 minutes or so. But honestly, it’s best to go based on the color. Once they start to turn brown, go ahead and pull them out and let them dry on a rack or sieve to allow the excess oil to drain off.
Repeat this process with the next batch of tortillas, until we have fried everything up!
powder em up
Ok now as long as the chips are cool enough to work with, go ahead and toss the nacho cheese powder over them and give it a good mix. It may take a minute, but really work to get these chips fully covered in powder.
After that, shake off any excess powder, and that’s it, man! We are done!
Condensed Recipe:
Shred the cheese
Place the cheese in the dehydrator for 12-24 hours
Soak up excess oil using paper towels or grind in mortar and pestle if necessary
Place cheese powder and chopped onion into single layer on tray and return to dehydrator for 8 hours
Repeat process until cheese is only slightly oily
Grind cheese and onions into very fine powder in mortar and pestle
Add spices and sieve the powder mix
Cut tortillas into quarters
Heat oil to 350°F | 175°C
Fry tortillas: approx. 4 mins on one side, 2 mins on the other
Toss over cheese-spice powder and mix well
Links:
Oven/Dehydrator: https://amzn.to/2ToloVu
Box Grater: https://amzn.to/3rjzDaB
Mixing Bowls: https://amzn.to/3yZbEjA
Mortar and Pestle: https://amzn.to/3zfhyxl
Cuisinart Burner: https://amzn.to/3xLyRFC
Sieve: https://amzn.to/3ipLuQv
Cast Iron Skillet: https://amzn.to/3zfzkAg
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