Perhaps my favorite part of shortcut cooking is calling a dish something more impressive than what it actually is. But Velveeta cheese sauce just doesn’t have the same ring to it as Jalapeño Cream Sauce.

This meal was thrown together on a whim. My husband craved Velveeta chili dip the previous night, leaving us with a large brick of Jalapeño Queso Blanco (generic) Velveeta. By the next evening he wanted buffalo chicken, I wanted pasta, so we improvised, coming up with what ended up being just fantastic.

INGREDIENTS:

• 2″ cubed of Velveeta or comparable cheese spread. I used queso blanco w/jalapeños
• 1/4 cup of half & half
• 1 small carton of Kitchen Basics chicken broth
• 1 tablespoon corn starch (dissolved in water and added near the end to thicken)
• 1 cup Trader Joe’s Fire Roasted Corn
• 1 tsp Frank’s Red Hot Buffalo Sauce

Simmer this until the cheese is melted and the sauce is reduced a bit. Between the broth and the cheese there’s really no need to add any other flavoring. The corn is the key in this sauce, adding a toasty sweetness, the fire roasted kernels giving it more complexity than simply adding sweet corn. This created a spicy, rich cream sauce that defies the simplicity of its ingredients.

For the chicken, I baked chicken breasts with a generous amount of Frank’s Red Hot Buffalo Sauce, chopped it in chunks and served it all up with some whole wheat rotini.