19 Best Dipping Sauces To Elevate Fried Cheese Curds

As summer begins winding down, it's natural to begin looking forward to fall time delights. But before pumpkin spice and spooky season kick in, the end of the summer signals an equally exciting time period — state and county fair season. From giants like the Minnesota and Texas State Fairs to teeny-tiny festivals deep in the boonies, fair season means thrilling carnival rides, baby farm animals, giant pumpkins, live music, and lots and lots of watch-your-waistline food. Bring on the mini donuts, fried cookie dough, foot-long hot dogs, and, of course, cheese curds.

Cheese curds can be made from many different types of cheese, but Wisconsin cheese curds — the squeaky, melt-in-your-mouth delicious style commonly found at state and county fairs — are usually made from cheddar. Created by splitting curds from whey during the cheese production process, cheese curds can be eaten plain, but are often breaded or battered and deep fried for extra crunch. While fried cheese curds' crispy, salty shells and creamy, tangy centers make them delicacies in and of themselves, the salt and fat content of each morsel can be a bit overwhelming. Enter dipping sauce. At a carnival, you're most likely to receive a ramekin of ranch dressing with your bucket of curds — which is perfectly acceptable, but why not try something more interesting? If you want to take your fried cheese curds to the next level, here's a smattering of dipping sauce ideas to try out.

We've long known that sweet jams and jellies pair well with certain cheeses. Fruit jellies like strawberry, apricot, and peach can take a charcuterie board to the next level, elevate a pastry-wrapped baked Brie, and act as the cherry (jam) on top of a cheesecake. What happens when you add a pinch of spice to that sweetness? Magic, that's what. Hot pepper jelly combines fruit and berry jellies with hot peppers for a beautifully balanced gelatinous spread packed with sweet heat.

If your only experience with cheese curds is dipping them in ranch, you're in for a real treat should you choose to shake things up with pepper jelly. When the two are combined, you're getting bursts of every type of flavor: salt, fat, and cream from the curds as well as sweetness, acid, and heat from the pepper jelly. Try out different flavors of pepper jelly (blueberry, orange, raspberry, etc.) to see which combination best tickles your taste buds.

There's no way around it: Fried cheese curds are a heavy snack. They're packed with fat, carbs, and dairy. You might see a family waiting in line for the Ferris wheel struggling to polish off a plastic bucket overflowing with crispy curds and think, "I can take that down by myself in five minutes," but without any other flavors to offset the heaviness, you're likely entering a losing game.

Fresh herbs are one of the best ways to counterbalance salty, fatty foods, and bright, fresh pesto — a sauce made from basil, pine nuts, Parmesan cheese, olive oil, garlic, and lemon juice — delivers a soothing, herbal coolness to everything it touches. As a bonus, the best basil pesto has a bright green hue, which looks pretty cool when contrasted with the crispy golden skin of piping-hot fried cheese curds.

Marilyn Monroe once said "some like it hot," but given the tens of thousands (if not more) of hot sauces on the market today, it's safe to say "a whole lot of people like it hot." From industry giants like Crystal and Tabasco to the small-batch hot sauce your friend gives out every Christmas, hot sauces are available at every level of heat imaginable, from mild pepper sauce that adds just the tiniest kick to your wings, to the type that'll burn the skin off your tongue. Most fall somewhere in the middle.

If you're a hot sauce nut, you've got to try it with cheese curds. Drizzle a little onto the crunchy outer shell of the curd for a slight kick, or dip your fried morsel into a container of your favorite hot sauce for a more intense, immersive heat. If you're cool with double-dipping, try alternating bites with hot sauce and blue cheese or ranch for a mind-bending spicy and cool contrast.

Pomegranate molasses, made by extracting the juice of brilliant garnet pomegranate arils and allowing the juice to simmer until it's reduced by about 75%, has little in common with traditional molasses aside from consistency. Pomegranate molasses is rich and slightly sweet, but being derived primarily from the juice of pomegranate seeds, its overwhelming flavor is more tart and tangy with a hint of musk and sometimes citrus.

The thick, sticky syrup is a common addition to Middle Eastern dishes and pairs well with both sweet and savory recipes. Pomegranate molasses' tart, tangy taste is a fantastic way to take your fried cheese curds to the next level. Dip your curds directly into the syrup, or drizzle it over your container of cheese curds for a tasty and aesthetically pleasing effect.

Sweet, salty, umami-rich hoisin sauce plays a role in lots of Asian dishes. It's a hodgepodge of ingredients that sound somewhat counterintuitive (black bean paste, soy sauce, rice vinegar, brown sugar, sesame oil, fish sauce, etc.). However, when mixed together, they're *chef's kiss*. Classic hoisin sauce is an ingredient in many dishes and marinades where it's combined with other ingredients, but it happens to make a great dipping sauce all on its own.

Something about cheese curds' crispy fried shell allows them to pair well with salty, sweet sauces and toppings. Hoisin sauce delivers an incredible flavor punch, and when a creamy, salty curd is dipped into the rich, sweet, and potent sauce, a strange, beautiful, and tasty magic happens. Contrast is king when it comes to pairing cheese curds with dipping sauces, and this particular combo has it going on in all the right ways.

Move over, balsamic vinegar. Balsamic glaze, which is a reduction of pure balsamic vinegar, condenses all the rich, fruit-forward properties of balsamic vinegar into a sticky, flavor-packed sauce. Balsamic glaze carries similar notes to balsamic vinegar (often a complex mixture of molasses, prunes, figs, and chocolate), but each element is intensified in the glaze version of the popular dressing.

Balsamic glaze is a great choice of dipping sauce for cheese curds for a number of reasons. The rich, saccharine, and tangy sauce beautifully complements the salty, creamy, fatty elements of the curds. The syrupy consistency of balsamic glaze helps it cling to the curds' fried coating more easily than pure balsamic vinegar — vinegar may soak into the breading and imbue each bite with a briny tang, but its viscosity is too low to qualify it as an ideal coating.

There are myriad types of chile paste on the market. Many countries and regions have their own unique versions, from harissa to gochujang — but give us a chili pepper paste endorsed by Giada De Laurentiis, and we're as good as sold. Giada's favorite is Calabrian chili paste, a smoky, spicy, and salty paste incorporating Italian Calabrian chile peppers, garlic, salt, and olive oil in its most basic form. It might sound simple, but Calabrian chiles have a hot and fresh flavor that stands out from other hot peppers.

Hopefully, by this point, you've already realized the benefits of giving fried cheese curds an upgrade with spicy sauces like hot sauce, horseradish cream, and pepper jelly, and Calabrian chili paste offers another way to do just that. As a bonus, Calabrian chiles have a bit of smoky flavor to them, which gives the creamy curds and fried coating a nice twist. Calabrian chili paste can be a bit thick, but the end result is well worth the textural challenge.

Hot honey hasn't always enjoyed the limelight, but as America's penchant for sweet and spicy foods has exploded, adding hot honey to dishes as diverse as sweet tea, cornbread, and pepperoni pizza is now in vogue. The recipe for hot honey can be as simple as allowing hot peppers to sit in warmed honey for a few days — that's all it takes for the sweet, syrupy honey to become infused with the smoky spice of the peppers.

Honey, in and of itself, is already a great choice for charcuterie boards, lending its sweetness to the salty, smoky, nutty ingredients one typically finds on a cheese platter. Why not take it a step further and test it out on some fried cheese curds? If the curds are hot enough, the hot honey will nearly caramelize on the crispy shell of the curds — and if not, you'll still be able to enjoy the effects of the sugary, spicy honey against the crunchy, breaded, cheesy curds.

If you like lightly spicy salad dressings, you've got to try Russian dressing. Commonly used to add a kick to Reuben sandwiches, Russian dressing melds spicy horseradish and paprika with mayonnaise, ketchup or tomato sauce, Worcestershire, onion, and salt for a creamy, savory, and spicy delight. Ketchup lends a tomato-y, acidic bite to the mix, while horseradish imbues the sauce with its signature nostril-tingling, nippy flavor and mayo cools everything down.

A salad dressing aisle staple, Russian dressing is great for sandwiches and salads, but it's also a fantastic addition to cheese curds. The creamy base provides a refreshing break from the crispy, piping-hot curds, and the other ingredients blend together to offer plenty of vinegar and spice. It's a catch-all condiment and a great way to elevate your cheese curds.