Frito Pie Recipe on Food52 (2024)

FAQs

What is Frito pie made of? ›

Frito pie is a dish popular in the Midwestern, Southeastern, and Southwestern United States, whose basic ingredients are chili, cheese, and corn chips (traditionally Fritos, hence the name). Additions can include salsa, refried beans, sour cream, onion, rice, or jalapeños.

The largest Frito pie weighed 601.01 kg (1,325 lb), and was assembled by Frito-Lay (USA) at the State Fair of Texas in Dallas, Texas, USA, on 1 October 2012.

Frito pie is also found across the Midwest, where it's usually referred to as a "walking taco."

Unlike a walking taco, a Frito pie is always made with, you guessed it, Fritos. But that's not even the main difference between the two foods—the thing that sets a Frito pie apart from a walking taco is that a Frito pie is topped with chili instead of taco meat.

Ingredients. Corn, vegetable oil (corn and/or canola oil), and salt.

Corn chips smothered with chili. How can you top that? With onions and cheese, of course.

Frito Pie is a popular dish in American cuisine, particularly in the southwestern United States. It is typically made by layering Fritos corn chips with chili, cheese, and various toppings.

As with other great Texas food traditions like Chicken Fried Steak, the precise and exact origins of Frito Pie are unknown, lost to the ages like sparks escaping from a campfire in the West Texas desert.

FritoPie has a unique history rooted in southwestern American cuisine. It's believed to have originated in the 1930s in Texas or New Mexico. The dish typically consists of Fritos corn chips topped with chili, cheese, onions, and other optional ingredients like sour cream or jalapeños.

The name walking taco is sometimes used synonymously with the term Frito pie or to refer to an on-the-go variation of it, though the name Frito pie is more often used in the South, especially Texas, where it most often refers to a bag of Fritos chips filled with chili.

Who came up with Frito pie? ›

New Mexicans say Teresa Hernandez invented it in the 1960s at the Santa Fe Woolworth's (now the Five & Dime), ladling her mother's homemade red chili into opened corn chip bags, adding no garnishes or additions.

C.E. Doolin launched “Fritos” in 1932, inspired by a recipe he had purchased from Gustavo Olguin, a Mexican-American restaurant owner in San Antonio, where Doolin had worked as a fry cook. Olguin's “fritos” (the name came from the Spanish word frit, meaning fried) were small fried corn chips made from masa dough.

Walking tacos and tacos in a bag are the same thing: flavored ground beef served in a bag of chips with toppings like cheese, sour cream, and jalapeños. This dish is referred to as different things in various regions of the country, and it's a close cousin of the Frito pie.

Fritos are made by deep-frying extruded whole cornmeal, unlike the similar tortilla chips, which are made from cornmeal and use the nixtamalization process (known as masa). It is one of two brands representing Frito-Lay along with Lay's.

Records of the name Frito pie date back to at least 1946. The name Frito pie is likely a reference to its most traditional version, which specifically uses Fritos corn chips. Despite the use of the word pie in its name, Frito pie when made in a dish more closely resembles a casserole.

Records of the name Frito pie date back to at least 1946. The name Frito pie is likely a reference to its most traditional version, which specifically uses Fritos corn chips. Despite the use of the word pie in its name, Frito pie when made in a dish more closely resembles a casserole.

Frito Pie, A New Mexico Classic - The Bite.