Vegetarian Cheese Tamales Recipe {Tamales de Queso}

Ooey, gooey, fluffy, and extra pillowy this cheese tamales recipe is a wonderful addition to a holiday meal—but are comforting anytime. Enhance each tamal with epazote leaves and serve with tomato avocado salsa for cozy treat! If you’re a tamales beginner, reference my step-by-step tamales guide for answers to common tamales FAQs.

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My popular pork tamales are rich, soft, and flavorful. And so are today’s cheese version. But today’s recipe produces an indulgent melted cheese tamal. My team and I tested 4 versions until we found the perfect edge of, is this too much cheese? Almost, but nah! My entire family (kids included) have been enjoying these for weeks. We LOVE them.

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Here’s Why You’ll Love This Cheese Tamales Recipe

• This recipe makes 30-32 tamales—perfect for sharing.
• Super soft masa and milky cheese flavor.
• Faster and easier than regular meat and sauce-filled tamales. 
• Make-ahead friendly: Delicious warm and fresh from the steamer, but can easily be made-ahead and reheated. 
• Freeze well: Make them even further in advance and freeze them for later.

Challenge Ingredient: Masa Harina

This cheese tamales recipe is this month’s Challenge Ingredient Recipe! Every month we choose an ingredient that is common in Mexican cooking but may be unfamiliar to us here in the US or abroad. Then provide a delicious recipe to use it in. Make that recipe and enter to win a $150 Amazon gift card! Find out how to enter here.

This month, with the holidays here and tamales everywhere, we chose masa harina as our challenge ingredient. Masa harina takes dried nixtamalized corn (remember the November challenge ingredient?) and grinds it into a flour. When you add water to the flour you get a nutrient-dense dough that can be used to make literally hundreds of recipes including tamale dough.

My favorite brand is Masienda, which comes in many colors, is super flavorful and is made from non-GMO corn. You can find it in many Whole Foods stores and online. If you can’t find the Masienda brand, look for other brands that use non-GMO corn (Bob’s Red Mill, King Arthur, Gold Mine, etc) for the best flavor.

Lastly, cornmeal and masa harina are not the same thing. Cornmeal is made from dried corn that has not gone through the nixtamalization process. It doesn’t have the same nutritional value, flavor, or consistency. Masa harina is more like a corn flour—light and airy.

Ingredients You’ll Need For These Vegetarian Tamales

There are so many different types of tamales from sweet to savory, meat-filled to wrapped in banana leaves. Some are filled with complicated mole sauces and some (like this cheese tamales recipe) are really fairly simple.

You’ll Need 4 Elements:

1. Masa: To make the masa we will need a few more ingredients: Masa harina, vegetable or chicken broth, some kind of fat (lard, butter, vegetable shortening, olive oil, coconut oil), kosher salt, and baking powder.
2. Cheese: I found queso Oaxaca to have the best flavor and melty goodness but other options can include, Monterey Jack cheese or Mozzarella.
3. Corn husks: Dried corn husks are the wrapper for these tamales. Look for large husks, where the bottom is as wide as your hand with your fingers pressed together.
4. Epazote leaves: This is optional but I do love the beauty and flavor they add to these tamales. If you can’t find fresh epazote leaves, just leave them out.

*Variations: We are keeping these simple with just cheese as the filling but of course you can add other ingredients to make them your own. Try green chiles or charred strips of poblano pepper.

Key Steps To Homemade Tamales

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and then remove from the heat. Add the corn husks (you will need about 1 pound) and submerge them under the water with a pair of kitchen tongs. Let them soak in the hot water at least 30 minutes or until they are soft and pliable.

The next step is to make the masa. Start by rehydrating the masa harina with hot vegetable broth in a large bowl. Cover with plastic wrap. This gives the time for the dried flour to bloom and open. While you wait, whip the fat with the salt and baking powder a stand mixer with the paddle attachment or electric mixer.

• Are you a tamales beginner? Reference by Masa Tutorial for answers to common masa FAQ’s and step-by-step guide.

Add the hydrated masa dough a little at a time to the whipped fat with the mixer running until all the masa has been added. Add more broth until you have a dough that is a soft, spreadable consistency of loose mashed potatoes or vey creamy hummus.

Tear the Oaxaca cheese into logs a little bit thicker than your pointer finger. And remove the epazote leaves from the stem.

Filling The Delicious Tamales

Drain corn husks from the warm water. Select one that is as wide as your hand at the wide end and free of holes and tears. If it is a lot wider, you can tear a piece off the long side to make it smaller. Dry any excess water with a clean kitchen towel or paper towels.

Picture the husk like a triangle with the top being the pointy end and the bottom being the wide end. Place the bottom closest to you on a clean work surface. We will only be working with the bottom half of the triangle. Place 2 or 3 large epazote leaves down the middle of the bottom of the husk.

Take about 1/3 cup of masa and place it in the middle of the corn husk. Using a large spoon, carefully spread the masa over the epazote leaves, being careful not to move them around too much. Spread into an even layer leaving 1/2-inch border on the two sides and the bottom.

Place one piece of cheese in the center of dough and fold the right side of the corn husk over to meet the left side. Pull the left side toward the left while tucking the right side in to create a tight roll. Fold the pointed end down the seal.

Place the tamales open-side up in a steamer pot or in a steamer basket in a large Dutch oven and steam for 45 minutes to an hour over medium heat. Just wait until you smell these steaming! The tamales are ready when the masa is soft and fluffy, but not doughy and not hard.

Remove from the steamer and cover with aluminum foil for about 10 minutes before serving to slowly finish cooking. If you open them right away, the epazote leaves will stick to the corn husk instead of the masa.

If you want to take them to the next level, these are AHHHH-mazing with tomato-avocado salsa (salsa verde too, of course!) and even a dollop of sour cream.

Serve alongside your favorite holiday recipes, and here are some more ideas:

• Vegan Refried Beans
• Creamy White Rice with Sweet Corn
• Crushed Strawberry Margaritas
• Spicy Papaya Lime Shrimp Skewers