It Couldn't Be Easier To Build A 2-Ingredient Cheese Sauce

Depending on how you classify your cheese varieties, there are as many as 1,800 distinct types out there to try. Cheese, in any shape or form, soft or hard, sharp or soft, is a delicious addition of fat and distinct flavor as a topping, layered into a sandwich, baked into pasta, and is a crucial ingredient in many recipes. If you've already made dinner or lunch (let's be honest, breakfast would be on the table, too), cheese sauce is a convenient and ingenious way to make any food into a vehicle for cheese.

While some may think cheese sauces are uber-processed or may be laborious to make at home, in reality, a homemade cheese sauce is not that complicated to cook. Plus, it is much healthier than store-bought cheese sauce or dip, which may have artificial ingredients. 

This basic cheese sauce takes just two ingredients and a pan to whip up in your kitchen.

Cream cheese and grated cheddar cheese

In this super simple cheese sauce, no flour, milk or butter is needed: All you need is some cream cheese and some orange cheddar cheese. Take a two-to-one ratio of cream cheese to cheddar cheese, dump it into a pan, heat and then mix until both cheeses have melted and combined into each other. The result is a smooth, quick and super-easy-to-make cheese sauce base, which you can dress up with whatever other spices or flavors of your choosing, from garlic to chili peppers, or even add in a different type of cheese.

If you want to ramp up the nutritional benefits of your cheese sauce, you can add in some pureed cauliflower, which will blend in seamlessly to the mix. With the cheese sauce, the only limitations are in your palate and imagination: You can add it to soups, pour it over breadsticks and then bake 'em, or even spread it on toast for a savory breakfast.