Cheese Fondue Recipes
Cheese Fondue is a fun, entertaining, and social meal that can be enjoyed with family and friends. The recipes are versatile and can be made to serve any palate. Enjoy some of the Cheese Shark’s favourite recipes.
For a detailed post about Fondue, how it’s made, served, and its origin, check out our Swiss cheese Fondue post.
Check out our post on How to Make Cheese at Home to learn the art of making cheese. It’s a fun project for everyone.
For easy homemade cheese recipes check out our Cheese Making Recipes page.
If you are interested in the world of cheese making, visit our cheese Resource page or our How Cheese is Made post.
Enjoy!!!
How to make cheese fondue
1. Ready Made Cheese Fondue
The easiest, quickest, and often least expensive way to serve cheese fondue is to buy a ready to go fondue mix. We review a few good brands in our review section. The ready fondue mixes are typically very mild. If you prefer stronger tasting cheeses you can easily grate any cheese of your preference into the mix while melting it. The only rule for fondue cheese is that it needs to be aged cheese. Young cheeses like pizza mozzarella or mild cheddar can make the fondue very stringy.
Good add-on cheeses are: extra old cheddar, any goat cheese, blue cheese, aged gouda, or a shot of whipping cream which makes a fondue even smoother.
Serves 4
Utensils needed:
- Fondue pot with table burner
- Wooden ladle (wood won’t scratch the pot)
Ingredients:
- 2 bags of ready fondue (they are usually 400 g/ 14 oz)
- One garlic clove
- 1 loaf (600 g appx.) of a bread of your choice. I recommend fresh bread, and not sliced bread.
Procedure:
- Cut the bread in 3 cm/ 1 inch cubes
- Cut the garlic in half and rub the inside of the fondue pot with it.
- Leave the garlic half in the pot and add the cheese
- Place the pot on the stove on high heat
- As soon as the cheese starts melting on the bottom, turn the heat to medium
- Under constant stirring, heat until the cheese is fully melted
- Place the pot on the fondue burner
- Stick a bread cube onto the fondue fork and dip into melted cheese
- Keep stirring the cheese with your forks
- Adjust the burner heat as needed. The cheese shouldn’t boil.
- At the end of the meal add an egg and some liquor to the cheese crust that is left on the bottom of the pot. Mix and enjoy the last few bites.
2. Homemade Cheese Fondue
If you really want to impress your guests, create your own fondue mix. Making fondue from scratch will also allow you to use your favourite cheese or experiment with different cheese. As a rule, cheese should be aged. Young cheese will make a very stringy fondue. Below you will find a few great recipes.
This can be a quick recipe to prepare. However, we recommend grating the cheese and soaking the cornstarch, wine, and cheese for 2 to 6 hours before heating to allow the wine to break down the cheese. This makes the fondue smoother.
Cooking time after grating and soaking: 10 min
Pre-soaking the grated cheese and cornstarch in wine for a few hours will create a smoother fondue
Utensils needed:
- Fondue pot with table burner
- Wooden ladle (wood won’t scratch the pot)
- Cheese grater. Use the one that makes coarse cheese flakes. The fine graters used for parmesan work as well, but are much more work to grate by hand.
Ingredients for 4 people:
- 700 g/ 24 oz cheese (adjust to recipes below)
- 1 cup of white wine (some recipes call for beer)
- 1 tsp of lemon juice
- 4 tsp of cornstarch or white flour
- One garlic clove
- 1 loaf (600 g appx.) of a bread of your choice. I recommend fresh bread, and not sliced bread.
Procedure:
- Cut the bread in 3 cm/ 1 inch cubes
- Cut the garlic in half and rub the inside of the fondue pot with it, leave the garlic halves in the pot
- Add the cornstarch to the wine into the pot and mix well, then add the lemon juice.
- Grate the cheese, add it to the pot, and gently stir into the wine
- Leave the cheese soaking in the wine for up to 4 hours. If you don’t have time for the soaking you can skip this step, but soaking the cheese in the wine and lemon juice will result in a smoother fondue.
- Place the pot on the stove on high heat
- As soon as the cheese starts melting on the bottom, turn the heat to medium
- Under constant stirring heat until the cheese until it is fully melted
- Be patient. The cheese will go through a separation stage (the wine and cheese will separate). Just keep stirring until it becomes a consistent mix.
- Place the pot on the fondue burner
- Stick a bread cube onto the fondue fork and dip into melted cheese
- Keep stirring the cheese with your forks
- Adjust the burner heat as needed. The cheese shouldn’t boil.
- At the end of the meal add an egg and some liquor to the cheese crust that is left on the bottom of the pot. Mix and enjoy the last few bites.
Cheese Fondue Recipes
For the following recipes follow the instructions in the paragraphs above on how to make homemade fondue.
Neuchatel Fondue
This is a simple homemade fondue, containing only 2 cheeses. Swiss Gruyere and Swiss Emmental. It is an all time favourite. Serves 4 people.
- 4 cups (500g/1lbs ) of shredded Swiss Gruyere
- 1 3/4 cups (200g/0.5 lb) of shredded Swiss Emmental
- 2 tsp of cornstarch or white flour
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 1/2 cups of white wine
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- Ground pepper
- 600 g/ 1 1/4 lbs of white bread
The Swiss American Fondue Blend
This a great fondue from Swiss and American cheeses, with some zest.
Serves 4 people.
- 2 1/2 cups (300 g/10 1/2 oz) of shredded Swiss Gruyere
- 2 1/2 cups (300 g/10 1/2 oz) of shredded Extra Old Cheddar
- 3/4 cup (100 g/3 1/2 oz) of shredded Monterey Jack with Jalapenos. ( Jalapeno version is optional)
- 2 tsp cornstarch or white flour
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 1/4 cups of white wine
- 600 g/1 1/4 lbs white bread
The Dutch American Fondue Blend
This tasty fondue is a favourite in the Americas.
Serves 4 people.
- 2 1/2 cups (300 g/10 1/2 oz) of shredded Extra Old Cheddar
- 2 1/2 cups (300 g/10 1/2 oz) of shredded aged Gouda
- 3/4 cup (100 g/3 1/2 oz) of shredded Monterey Jack
- 2 tsp cornstarch or white flour
- 1 garlic clove
- 1.25 cups white wine
- 600 g/1 1/4 lbs white bread
The North American Blue Fondue
This is a specialty for the blue cheese and beer lovers.
Serves 4 people.
- 2 1/2 cups (300 g/10 1/2 oz) of shredded extra Old Cheddar
- 2 1/2 cups (300 g/10 1/2 oz) of shredded Monterey Jack
- 3/4 cup (100 g/3 1/2 oz) of crumbled blue cheese
- 2 tsp cornstarch or white flour
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 1/4 cups of beer, lager
- 600 g/1 1/4 lbs white bread
The Canadian Fondue
Canada has a wonderful array of artisan cheeses. Use Cheddar and Monterrey Jack as a base and add your favourite local cheese. If you want to really be Canadian, then make it a Poutine Fondue and dip french fries into the cheese…eh? This recipes serves 4. Here’s an example:
- 2 1/2 cups (300 g/10 1/2 oz) of shredded Extra Old Cheddar
- 1 3/4 cups (200 g/ 1/2 lb) of shredded Monterey Jack
- 1 3/4 cups (200 g/ 1/2 lb) of shredded Oka Cheese
- 2 tsp of cornstarch or white flour
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 1/4 cups of beer, lager
- 600 g/1 1/4 lbs of white bread
Fondue Recipe Variations (amounts based on above recipes for 4 people)
- Walnut Fondue: Add 5 chopped walnuts to the fondue right before serving.
- Tomato Fondue: Add one tbsp of tomato paste and a handful of chopped sundried tomatoes to the cheese just before serving. The sundried tomatoes are optional.
- Tomato Basil Fondue: Add one tbsp of tomato paste and 3 finely chopped fresh basil leaves to the cheese before serving.
- Hawaian Fondue: Add one cup of pineapple pieces to the cheese before serving.
- Mustard Fondue: Add one tsp of Dijon mustard to the cheese during the melting process.
- Pesto Fondue: Add one tbsp of your favourite pesto to the cheese during the melting process.
- Pumpkin or Sunflower Seed Fondue: Add half a cup of chopped seeds to the cheese before melting.
- Oriental Fondue: Before serving, add curry powder or curry paste to your taste to the cheese. Then top it up with 2 tbsp of coconut milk and some finely chopped lemongrass.
- Mushroom Fondue: Before starting to melt the cheese, fry one cup of finely chopped mushrooms in butter. Once the cheese is melted add the mushrooms.
Enjoy!!!
