Chili Fritos Pie with Avocado Mash
A fun dish to make with leftover Kitchen Tapestry Crock Pot Chili Con Carne, and it has an interesting history.
Whenever we make the Kitchen Tapestry recipe for Crock Pot Chili Con Carne, we do so with the intent of having leftovers, some of which we freeze for another day. But as a rule, we make this dish as a finale to the Chili because it’s fun, indulgent and easy to make. I like to serve it along side a “poor man’s Guacamole,” which I call Avocado Mash, the recipe for which is included herein.
You would think that a recipe for Chili Fritos Pie would be pretty simple: Chili and Fritos, of course; then, Cheese would certainly be implied. But like everything else in the blogosphere of food preparation and posted recipes, it gets as complicated as the often disputed origins of the recipe itself.
The Origins of Chili Fritos Pie
Folks in New Mexico claim that a gal named Theresa Hernandez created the recipe of simply spooning hot chili directly into a bag of Fritos at a Santa Fe Woolworth's lunch counter in the 1960s.
Texans, on the other hand, claimed it was the mother of the inventor of Fritos in San Antonio who included onions and cheese in her recipe, and served it in a bowl sometime in the 1930s.
According to her granddaughter, however, both stories are untrue.
In her 2011 book, Fritos Pie, Stories, Recipes and More by Kaleta Doolin, daughter of Fritos inventor, Charles Elmer Doolin, documented in1962 that the recipe appeared on millions of bags of chips: “Heat can of chili, pour into bag of Fritos, and sprinkle with grated cheese, and chopped onions."
In other words, the recipe was a promotional creation invented by the Consumer Services Department of the Frito-Lay Corporation. It has been a staple of football stadium and drive-in movie snack bars ever since.
By the way, you'll notice that Keleta calls the dish by its original name. "Chili Fritos Pie," not "Frito Pie" as is commonly used. The product is called Fritos and there originally was no singular version of that word. One chip would rightly be called a Fritos chip. Two chips would be called Fritos chips or Fritos. But the company confused consumers when it merged with Lay and became known as Frito-Lay. There was no singular version of the word “Fritos” before then, but the marketing guys thought that "Fritos-Lay" sounded funny and Frito-Lay was easier on the tongue.
In any event, I'll give the creator his due, and call the dish by its rightful name as written by his granddaughter.
The first time I remember eating “Frito Pie” was in the early ‘70s at Love's Burger Train Drive-in in the West Texas town where I grew up. I was just learning to drive my first car, a 1965 Volkswagen Beetle. I recall that the stout white onions Love's used and the aromatic blend of seasonings in their chili recipe, heavily imbued with cumin, would linger in my car for days.
While the ingredients of the original dish are the predominate pallet upon which most modern recipes are based, there is a good deal of diversity in Internet recipes I have researched, or in some cases, outright bastardization. Consider the recipe "Healthy Frito Pie" which doesn't even use Fritos. It uses instead baked corn tortillas, canned vegetarian chili and reduced fat cheese. I’ll not comment further on that.
Other recipes use all varieties of onions: green, yellow, red, white; some chili recipes have beans, some not; any manner of cheese is used, including one that had goat cheese. One published recipe, surprisingly by Pillsbury, had the bottom of its version of Fritos Pie lined with Crescent Rolls dough.
This is not a hard recipe and its deliciousness rests in the simplicity of its ingredient, needing no further enhancement or modification.
Top it with sour cream? Fine, but totally unnecessary.
Add jalapeños? Okay, but also unnecessary if your chili has been correctly seasoned.
Diced tomatoes? Ditto.
Beans? No. No beans. Just, no. If you want beans, have them only as a side dish.
Three Categories of Assembly
I group Internet Chili Fritos Pie recipes into three general categories: The Bag Method, The SOS Method and the Lasagna Method. And I consider only those made with the original four simple ingredients to be a true Chili Fritos Pie, as the dish was originally intended: Chili, Fritos, Cheese and Onions.
The Bag Method: The original method that was proposed by the Frito-Lay corporate kitchen. Open a lunch-pack-sized bag of Fritos, spoon in a cup of chili; top it with onions and grated cheddar cheese. This is great at a picnic or tailgate party, but don't try this with kids while they're watching TV unless you're prepared to call the carpet cleaning service the next day.
The SOS Method: Borrowing an Army acronym, this is merely the bag method, but served in a bowl. Both the Bag Method and the SOS Method have the benefit of leaving you with crunchy Fritos. The SOS Method makes it easier to add ancillary, if unnecessary, toppings, such as the aforementioned jalapeños and sour cream.
The Lasagna Method: Three alternating layers of Fritos, chili and cheese in a baking or casserole dish, where the bottom layer of the delicious chips melts into a kind of cheesy polenta but the top layer of Fritos retain their crispy goodness.
Now, about the ingredients:
The Chili: Of course, my version of this recipe uses only the Kitchen Tapestry recipe for Crock Pot Chili Con Carne. If you're going to use canned chili, the only acceptable brand, speaking as a Texan, is to use Wolf Brand Chili. They even have their own recipe, which they call "Corn Chip Pie" only because Conagra Brands doesn't yet own Frito-Lay.
The Cheese: If you want true stadium snack bar taste, use Cheez Whiz. I use Velveeta, which is pretty much the same thing with less water, topped with some shredded Mexican Blend and Cheddar.
The Onions: White Onions are too strong and Red Onions are too sweet. I'd use finely diced yellow onions or sweet onions (like Vidalia or Texas-1015) but My Number One Fan can only eat them if they're cooked. Therefore, Minced Green Onions work great and just as garnish at the last minute as the casserole dishes come out of the oven.
The Fritos: Use the Original Fritos. Not the Scoops; not the chili-cheese flavored; not the lightly salted ones, nor the Flamin' Hot Fritos and certainly not the barbecued flavored ones. The Original Fritos.
Chili Fritos Pie with Avocado Mash
Ingredients
- 6 cups Kitchen Tapestry recipe for Crock Pot Chili Con Carne
- 1 9- 1/4 oz bag of Original Fritos
- 6 slices American cheese (like, Kraft Singles)
- 6 oz Velveeta, melted in the microwave
- 1 cup shredded Mexican Blend cheese (like, Sargento)
- 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
- 2 green onions, finely chopped
- 1 large, ripe Haas Avocado
- 1/4 tsp course sea salt
- juice of 1 fresh lime
- 1 tsp malt vinegar
- 2 tbsp fresh cilantro, very finely chopped
- 1-2 dashes Tabasco Sauce
- 1 medium, ripe red tomato, diced.
Instructions
- In a 9" x 15" x 2" baking dish, start with a layer of Fritos.
- Scoop out a cup of chili over top of the Fritos. It's easier to manage this if the chili is cold.
- Top with the slices of American cheese laid end-to-end.
- Repeat the layers of Fritos but with the Velveeta.
- Finish with a final layer of Fritos using the shredded Mexican Blend and cheddar cheeses.
- Bake 30-40 minutes until the cheeses are melted and bubbly.
- Garnish with the finely chopped green onion and allow to cool for 3-5 minutes before dishing up.
- Remove the avocado pit and scoop out the fruit into a mixing bowl.
- Sprinkle with the coarse sea salt and mash the avocado with a fork.
- Squeeze in the juice of 1/2 fresh lime, malt vinegar, dashes of Tabasco Sauce and the chopped fresh cilantro.
- Blend everything together until homogeneous. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.
- Just prior to serving, gently fold the tomato into the avocado mixture and serve.
Notes
- If you do not have fresh cilantro, use a fresh cilantro paste like, Gourmet Garden. Do not use dried.
