For Easy Cheese Fondue At Home, Break Out The Slow Cooker

For those among us who know that nibbles make the best meals of all, cheese fondue is a supreme example of snack-for-dinner offerings. With dippers like artisan bread chunks, chopped fruits and vegetables, and an assortment of savory meats, there's something for every taste. In the old days, having cheese fondue was quite an involved, multistep process, with the home gourmand starting the cheese on the stove before transferring it to a fondue pot with a candle or oil burner underneath to keep the cheese warm. Fortunately, things are less complicated in the modern fondue-o-sphere. You can replace both the stovetop and the fondue pot with a slow cooker to get the same effect with a lot less hassle. And part of the reason it works is embedded in a typical fondue recipe.

Most people use a couple of different kinds of cheese, with soft cheeses that melt easily leading the way. Chief among them is Gruyère, which has a slightly nutty flavor that plays well with other cheeses, like a tangy cheddar, smoked Gouda, or sharp Asiago. Among the more underrated melty cheeses is pepper jack. It certainly appeals to the spice lovers among us, though its spiceless cousin jack cheese also works well. 

But aside from cheese, fondues usually contain emulsifiers of some sort. Traditionally, people have used white wine or lemon juice. Ingredients like these enhance the dip's flavor and function as binders that keep the oils from separating from the rest of the cheese. The result is a creamy, melty cheese dip that doesn't turn into a blob with pools of oil on top.

Slow cooker cheese fondue cooks on its own without time on the stove top. That means you don't need to transfer it to a fondue pot afterward. You just need to grate the cheeses and put them into the slow cooker with your emulsifiers. As long as you haven't made any of the common mistakes that sabotage your cheese sauce, they should melt until they get to the perfect consistency.

However, this isn't a completely set-it-and-forget-it recipe. Depending on the cheeses you select, you may have to stir the mixture every 15 minutes to half an hour or so to ensure the cheese doesn't scorch or stick to the bottom. And it takes time. Most grated cheeses take about an hour to melt on the slow cooker's high setting. That said, some fondue recipes take as long as three hours to turn into a melted wonderland of gooey umami goodness. 

In terms of ideal dippers, it's really whatever you can stack up next to the slow cooker. Flavor-wise, a good rule of thumb here is the same as the golden rule for filling a charcuterie board. It's not enough that all the dippers taste good with your cheese sauce. You also want to make sure you encompass all the parts of your palate: sweet, salty, heat, acid, and fat.