Queso Frito with Radish Salad and Chile-Lime-Honey Vinaigrette

A simple honey-kissed vinaigrette, boasting the bite and tang of fresh lime juice and Thai bird's eye chillis, is drizzled over perfectly-seared pieces of Queso Blanco lounging on a bed of thinly-sliced radishes and fresh cilantro leaves. Each bite of this moreish salad offers the taste of rich, creamy, gooey cheese with crispy exteriors, the crunch of the radishes, the fresh taste of cilantro, and the lime and chillis to balance out the richness of the cheese.

I love this.


Queso Blanco is a perfect frying cheese as it doesn't melt too easily and holds its shape quite well. I prefer it over Queso Fresco which, though can also be seared, has more crumbly texture. Queso Blanco is creamy and doesn't turn rubbery or squeaky as easily as other Halloumi or Juustoleipä.

Queso Blanco has become harder and harder to find, though. Even my favorite Hispanic market doesn't always have it. So if you can't find Queso Blanco, you can use any of the cheeses mentioned here. At a Hispanic market, anything labeled "queso para freir" or "queso de freir" should work.

Traditionally, queso frito is dredged in flour (or sometime battered) and deep-fried. I don't do anything to it other than sear the outsides over medium-low heat in a nonstick pan coated with a thin layer of olive oil. Once one side is browned, gently flip the cheese with a heat-resistant spatula or the thinnest spatula in the house.

Be sure to slice the cheese in such a way that gives you as much surface area as possible. As for thickness, a quarter inch is my preference as it's just thick enough to allow the top and the bottom of each piece to develop the crispy crusts and the insides to warm up to the "gooey stage." Slice the cheese too thin and you get all crust with no gooey middle; slice it too thick and the outsides get too browned before the middle gets gooey.

Vegans, use marinated extra-firm tofu. It's delicious as well.


While the standard vinaigrette ratio is 3 parts oil and 1 part vinegar, for this salad, I do 1 part extra-virgin olive oil and 1 part lime juice in order to keep it from becoming too rich since we're serving the salad with the fried cheese. 1/2 part honey is added to the mix to soften the blow of fresh Thai bird's eye chillis.

Then it's just a matter of arranging thinly-sliced radishes on a plate, strewing some cilantro leaves and little pieces of the chilli over it, draping the sear cheese on top of the radish bed, and drizzling the vinaigrette over everything. Consume immediately as you don't want to miss the joy of biting into the crispy crusts of the cheese and feeling its creamy interiors ooze out through the cracks onto your tongue.

This post is my submission to Battle Radish, as part of our monthly vegetable food fight, Beet 'n Squash YOU!, hosted by Gourmet Fury and me. Enter your new or archived radish recipes to us before May 7th!