Previous post
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links for which I receive a commission at no additional cost to you. Please see my full disclosure here.
My husband and I bought our first fondue pot 15 years ago after going to a fondue restaurant with friends. It was our first time eating fondue and we found it to be such a cool way to dine with friends. Of course, we wanted to replicate the meal at our house and set out to buy a fondue pot.
Cuisinart makes one that we love and as you can see, it’s almost time for a new one. However, we now have two pots and the other one is a no name brand that works just as well.
You want an electric pot to keep the heat source consistent. Our set came with the fondue forks and a small recipe book. Our first batch of cheese fondue turned out pretty good, but we have made several batches since then, tweaking it as we go.
Here’s our current ingredient list:
3/4 lbs of Emmentaler cheese
3/4 of Gruyere cheese
3 tablespoons flour
1 1/2 cups of chardonnay
a pinch of nutmeg at the end
We found Trader Joe’s to have the most reasonably priced cheese, but we have picked it up at Whole Foods, Costco and our local grocer.
Preparation:
Shred cheese with a hand grater or food processor. I can honestly say that I only use my food processor, which was a gift, for shredding cheese. If I was going to buy a food processor strictly for cheese, I would choose the mini one.
The hand grater is a cheaper route for sure, but it takes much longer and if you ever grated your fingers like I have, you might be a bit skittish to use it again.
Place shredded cheese in a Ziploc bag and add the flour. Seal and shake to coat the cheese evenly. Do not skip this step. My friend chose to ignore it and had runny cheese.
Cut up the dippers before melting the cheese. We love Granny Smith apples for their tartness and a dense pumpernickel bread. We have also used a crusty baguette when we couldn’t find pumpernickel.
You want both the apples and the bread to be bite sized. Cube the bread (try to purchase it unsliced) and leave the peel on the apple.
Plug in fondue pot and add chardonnay. I recommend Kendall Jackson for its buttery and oaky flavor, but wine, even when cooking, is subjective.
When the wine starts to bubble, add the cheese in small handfuls and mix with wooden spoon as you add. It looks very runny at first, but it will thicken up.
When cheese is the right consistency, you can mix in a pinch of nutmeg (1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon). It’s ready to serve immediately. Keep heat on super low to keep cheese from congealing. Enjoy!
We honestly could make a meal just of the cheese fondue, but we wanted to recreate the whole meal experience with another group of friends at a dinner party, so we needed to experiment with the main course and dessert.
We perfected our evening with some cute fondue forks and plates, played a few fun games and had a lot of laughs.
Want to know how you can create your own fondue party? Check out my Fondue Party Plan in my Etsy store which includes all the recipes, a shopping list, variations, invitations, game suggestions, wine pairings and more.
