What Cheeses Are Actually In Store-Bought Mexican-Style Shredded Cheese Blend?

You're making chicken tinga nachos and need that all-important ingredient: the dairy! You may just grab whatever bag of shredded cheese with the word "Mexican" on it at the grocery store, but what happens when you can't find this essential component? The obvious answer would be to make it yourself, but the one problem with Mexican-style blends is that there really is no definitive answer as to what specific varieties make them "Mexican." However, most brands follow a similar blueprint, and if you're familiar with Mexican cuisine, you might expect to find combinations including Monterey Jack, cheddar, quesadilla, Oaxaca, Chihuahua, and asadero styles.

But here's the catch: Just because a brand can use all of these styles doesn't mean it will. Some of the cheeses on the above list may never show up in what you buy at the store. Looking at 20 common grocery store brands of Mexican shredded cheese blends, none featured Oaxaca or Chihuahua cheeses. Some include queso blanco, Colby, or cheddar, while Kraft's blend includes mozzarella. However, 70% of the brands I analyzed include the following four types: cheddar, Monterey Jack, quesadilla, and asadero.

Shredded Mexican cheese blends are often used in American-style, Mexican-inspired dishes, which sometimes get lumped into the Tex-Mex category but include dishes from places as far from Texas (or Mexico) as Minnesota. But using melting cheese isn't an only-in-the-U.S. type of thing, because there are quite a few traditional Mexican dishes with pretty impressive cheese pulls. Take alambres, which are like fajita platters smothered in melted cheese. And many dishes from northern Mexican states, which border the U.S., feature cheeses like quesadilla, asadero, and Chihuahua, which was actually created by German Mennonite settlers.

Americans living close to the Mexican border may have come in contact with these cheeses, liked their mild flavors and stretchy consistencies, and incorporated them into the first Tex-Mex dishes. As a localized version of Mexican cuisine started to take shape in the U.S., those who didn't have access to these traditional Mexican melting cheeses may have replaced them with common American-style cheeses possessing similar properties: mild cheddar and the naturalized American cheese, Monterey Jack. One or both of these were used as the default "Mexican cheese" in the U.S. for a while. A Redditor claiming to have grown up in South Texas commented that "shredded sharp cheddar is the gold standard in [Tex-Mex]," and it's still used at Taco Bell, even in its most affordable menu item: the Cheesy Roll Up.

I always remember mild cheddar and/or Monterey Jack appearing on the table when my Texan mother would make tacos. But as Americans became more aware of the traditional foods of Mexico and demand for them grew, perhaps American cheesemakers began to expand their repertoire, and now store-bought Mexican cheese blends include a little bit of the old-school "taco cheese" along with some more traditional varieties.