Cheese Fondue Recipe — For a Night of Family Fun!

Valentines has a lot of pressure with it once you’re with the one you love.  How much do you spend? What do you buy?  I’m such a practical gal, fresh flowers kind of make me mad (unless we got them for a great price). But, then I do want something… anyone else have that problem?

However, fondue had gone very bad in the past for me. We don’t do wine so a lot of recipes are out… so I was really wanting to find one that would be EASY — and I have found the answer for you! This is seriously the EASIEST fondue (both cheese and chocolate) you’re going to find. You can also easily tailor it to your tastes (different cheese, different chocolate).

This fondue is great for any occasion (I see a LOT of people using this cheese condue recipe at New Years too). Don’t let the fact that we use it at Valentines throw you off. This post will start with cheese, but I also have a great recipe for chocolate fondue too — so keep reading!

And then there’s the issue of hitting a restaurant on that special night.  So crowded, pressured to SHOW OUR LOVE to each other.  Not to mention expensive.  I’d rather save my budget, and just head to a favorite restaurant on the weekend.

Which is how I came up with fondue for our family.  We’ve done it every year for the past 15 or so years. Our kids REALLY look forward to it, and it’s nice to concentrate on our FAMILY love rather than just the romance between my husband and myself.  But, don’t feel tied to Valentines with this.  It’s great for a fun family meal whenever you think you could use a little pick me up!

However, fondue can be nerve-wracking!  I’m sure we’ve all tried to make a cheese sauce that “broke” (in turn breaking us) or was lumpy.  Frankly, a lot can go wrong with fondue.  But not with this recipe.  It’s practically fail-proof (as long as you don’t burn it, you’re on your own if you ignore it) and is easy to tailor to your family’s tastes.

Lets do this!

First there’s cheese.  You can pick whatever kind your family likes.  I often do a sharp cheddar (the family’s favorite) or swiss (my own favorite).  The recipe actually calls for a Monterrey Jack.  If that’s a family favorite, then by all means go with that.  It’s a nice mild flavor that won’t turn off any little mouths. 🙂  For ease of writing, I’m going to talk about it as swiss cheese.

Cheese Fondue

I use a recipe I found in Family Fun a LONG time ago. I found the recipe right here if you want to print it out (but seriously keep reading the tips because every year I worry I’ve ruined it):

It goes a little something like this (this recipe makes a good amount of fondue, plenty for the 5 of us)

When you’re ready to make the fondue you need to be committed to it. You can’t be making this and chopping up stuff or helping a child. You need to focus on it. There are a few minutes as the milk is heating, but once you reach a simmer your focus HAS to be on this (don’t worry it’s not going to take long).

1 cup milk (the recipe calls for 1 cup, but I usually do about 1.25 cups, because it sits in the frying pan and gets too gloopy if the milk is too little).

Bring the milk to a simmer — about 2-3 minutes (that means it’s not boiling, but it’s starting to get small bubbles around the edges).  You could also add a smashed garlic clove (or if you’re garlic lovers like us you can just do a tsp of minced garlic).

Toss 1 pound of swiss cheese (or cheese of choice) with 2 T of flour.  I put all my cheese in a basic plastic bag and shake it all around til the flour is all around it.  This prevents the flour from making it lumpy.  This is really the magic to this recipe!

So, back to the milk, it’s simmering….

Then take handfuls of the cheese/flour mixture and use your wisk to wisk it in until it’s all melted.   Wisk fast.  This isn’t a gentle wisk, with the heat you’re trying to wisk it in so it’s smooth.  Then, another handful.  You want to make sure to do just handfuls, you don’t want the milk getting overwhelmed by the cheese or it’s hard to mix in.  You’re going to need to wisk hard and fast.  Make sure you do some arm workouts prior to this.   Haha.

Then, heat is off after cheese is melted.

There may come a point where you’re like — crap, it’s ruined. I think this every year. Keep wisking, even whisk harder if you can. I reach that point almost every year and then I somehow make it through it. I think the cheese often “seizes” up and then relaxes with some heat and whisking.

We haven’t had a lot of luck using a fondue pot (our last one rusted, since we don’t use it very frequently). We use an electric frying pan on low at our table.  It’s also larger so we can all get a seat around it!  Be sure to find some fondue forks though.  They’re long enough that everyone can dip without getting burned (I see them at Goodwill pretty frequently).

You could use a crock put, but with smaller kids it’s hard for them to reach up and over the sides, so we picked that cheap frying pan set to it’s lowest temp. Be sure to stir it with a dipper now and then so the cheese doesn’t get stuck in one spot — it can burn.

Now, it’s time for the REAL fun!  The dippers (I LOVE picking out dippers):

• Bread — this isn’t time for the basic french bread, I recommend a crusty, hearty bread that will hold up well on your fondue fork.  I often buy a nicer multi-grain and also a crusty sourdough.  Yum.
• Chicken, I often sautee up a few cut-up chicken breasts and serve those
• Pickles (don’t knock it til’ you try it), you could also use pork or steak!
• Roasted garlic (same as above)
• Grapes (love me some sweet and savory)
• Roasted potatoes (make sure they’re still firm’ish, don’t roast them til’ they are smushable)
• Roasted veggies (we love cauliflower, carrots, asparagus and broccoli) — another option is blanching the veggies (especially the broccoli) just to soften them a bit before you dip (DO NOT OVER-ROAST, mushy broccoli dropping in your delicious fondue is a BIG Fon-DON’T).
• Mushrooms (I love baby bellas)
• Red pepper (best raw, I think)

Oh man, writing this post is making me hungry.  You too?

We have a couple of fun traditions during the fondue.  

If you drop something, instead of kissing you have to say something nice about the person to your left (or across from you — we change it several times during the meal so you end-up saying nice things about many people).

We also usually have fonde a couple of nights.  When you’ve gone to all the effort of buying all the dippers and prepping it all, you might as well get two meals out of it!  I do make the cheese part fresh each time, it’s not great as a re-run.

Chocolate Fondue

And, of course we follow it with chocolate. The recipe I use is on Family Fun also. The key there is the dippers. Clearly, you can do whatever you want — but some things that our family LOVES:

• Chocolate chip cookie dough (be sure to use a kind that is OK to eat raw — no eggs and toast the flour if you’re making it on your own)
• Cheesecake bites
• Bits of candy bar
• Cut-up rice krispy treat

We also use apple (green), strawberries, and bananas to round it out.

I have to say that even as my kids are adults they will 100% come home for the fondue tradition and whole heartedly agree it’s our best family tradition to date. I’m really glad we started this and it’s been really fun to do together.

And yes, if you’re making this at New Years NOW is also a great time to make a resolution to get into routines more. 🙂

This post was originally published in 2016, but has been updated.