Tater Tot Nachos ~ For Real

Back in January, I was perusing BuzzFeed.com and came across a video of Chef Dale Talde preparing his Fully Load Tater Tots.
{UDATE: Unfortunately, the video has been removed from the source I used to post it here.}

Of course, Chef Dale makes his own nacho cheese sauce, chili, pulled pork and pickled Jalapeños, but when we made these for Super Bowl Sunday in February, we opted for an easier way.

First of all, we didn't fry our tater tots. We probably should have. They would have held up better to the chili and cheese sauce, but they tasted just fine. And since we didn't fry our tater tots, we didn't use the bacon either.

I made my own nacho cheese sauce, a cheesy queso sauce my son, Chris, developed when he worked at a Mexican restaurant in Colorado. It's made with homemade salsa and it's delicious. I'll post the recipe for that at another time.

We didn't make our own chili. We used Hormel chili without beans, only because that's our preference. You can make your own chili or used canned, with or without beans.

We opted out of the pulled pork altogether.

We added a simple guacamole, some chopped cilantro and I also used my own candied Jalapeños.

We topped it off with sour cream flavored lightly with lime juice.


This is how we put it together.

First get your nacho cheese sauce ready. You can use the velveeta and Rotel type or make your own. Keep it warm.

Chop up some tomato, onion and cilantro and set them aside. Drain the Jalapeños and set them aside in a small bowl.

Put the canned chili in a pot, get it hot and keep it warm.

If you're going to use guacamole or chopped avocado, make that and set aside.

Pull out a bag of grated cheddar cheese or grate your own.

Finally, whisk together about 1/2 cup of sour cream (or Greek yogurt is good, too) with the juice of a half of a lime and set aside.

Now you'll be ready when your tater tots come out of the oven.


To prepare the tater tots, preheat your oven according to package directions. This where we deviate from the instructions on the package. First put the frozen tater tots in large bowl and drizzle them with about 1/4 cup of oil. This will help make them crispier than normal, although not quite as crispy as frying. Mix the tater tots and oil up with your hands or a large spoon and make sure they are all covered. Now spread them out in a single layer on a baking sheet bake according to package directions, however, add about 10 minutes extra to the baking time to make sure they were good and crispy.


When you take the tater tots out of the oven, you can leave them on the baking sheet as we did, or transfer them to a large platter. While the tater tots are hot, put the nachos together.

Sprinkle the tater tots with a generous amount of grated cheddar cheese.

Spoon hot nacho cheese sauce evenly over the cheese and tots.

Now, spoon the chili evenly over the cheese sauce.

Sprinkle the tomatoes, onions, cilantro and jalapeños over the chili.

Drop spoons of guacamole over all.

Now drizzle on the lime flavored sour cream.

Voilà!! You have March Madness Munchies!