Yellow cheese melted with chillies, tomatoes and sometimes ground chorizo or beef, served bubbling in a black cast-iron skillet with warm flour tortillas or tortilla chips.

Chile con queso, the white-cheese-and-green-chilli original, runs back to early-20th-century San Antonio. The Houston yellow-Velveeta-and-Rotel version emerged after Rotel canned diced tomatoes hit shelves in 1943. Through the 1970s the Original Ninfa's and Felix Mexican Restaurant standardised the Houston restaurant queso: an orange-yellow pool, bubbling, with a side of taco meat or chorizo to fold in. Today every Tex-Mex room has a queso, and elevated rooms (Hugo's, Cuchara) build white versions with poblano or chorizo verde. The bubbling skillet, queso on the table before the menu hits, is canonical.

2 editor picks for Tex-Mex queso in Houston, ranked by editorial score. All Houston signature dishes · Tex-Mex queso across every city.