Kaylee's not-a-blog » Food » Meals » nachos, with cottage cheese

For a while, I've wanted to make decent nachos, however I hadn't really understand how to make them, so my first attempts were less than mediocre.
My sole reference had been Taco Bell nachos (yes, I'm a culinary impaired Northerner).
Summer 2023 I scored 14 bags of "bite size round" tortilla chips (on sale for $1 for each 13oz 369g bag), and it finally dawned on me that the key is to heat just a few ingredients, then use the chips as a scoop.

I immediately started keeping my eyes open for a sour cream sale, but, alas, there were none, though there were consistent cottage cheese sales, so I decided to try that as a substitute, with low expectations...
it worked superbly! :)
The cottage cheese wasn't as tangy as sour cream, however it was nicely creamy with an interesting texture and an excellent complement to the other ingredients.

Steps:

• add refried beans (and/or other core protein), cheese(s), and any desired vegetable(s), to a pot, then gently heat until cheese is melted
  (I used nacho "melting cheese", extra sharp cheddar shredded cheese, and canned whole kernel sweet corn)
• add sour cream or cottage cheese, and salsa
• use tortilla chips to scoop out the concoction :)

I wasn't sure of the "best" quantities to use, so instead aimed to use up a full unit of each of the perishable canned/jarred ingredients.
Since this was merely a trial run, I had planned to tweak quantities each day, but the ratios I started with worked out very well.
Since I don't have a fridge, I had planned to make nachos for about 4 days, but the first day I inadvertently used more beans than I had planned, so changed to 3 days and just went "big" the other two days as well. :)
I kept the opened containers in a cheap styrofoam cooler with a modest amount of (free) ice, and all ingredients were fine over the consumption period.

Future Plans:

• use a crockpot
• use sour cream
• skip salsa (to save money)
• try "plain" canned beans, instead of refried (to save money)

Pictures:

Ingredients used (all except tortilla chips):

Refried beans, and both cheeses in pot:

After heating (with corn), then adding cottage cheese and salsa:

Estimated Calories & Cost:

item	Calories	Protein	Cost
refried beans (16oz,454g)	384	21 g	$1.09
melting cheese, nacho (8oz,227g)	605	16 g	$1.00
shredded cheese, extra sharp cheddar (used 100g)	391	21 g	$0.74
corn, whole kernel (15.25oz,432g)	242	7 g	$0.33
cottage cheese (24oz,680g)	662	72 g	$1.99
salsa, medium (8oz,226g)	70	0 g	$1.25
tortilla chips (used 284g)	1522	20 g	$0.77
Totals:	3,876	157 g	$7.17

I made three (3) large very filling meals (1 each for 3 days) out of the above,
for an average cost of $2.39, each containing 1292 calories and 52 grams of protein.
Each was my sole full meal for the day, supplemented with sundry snacks.

All items (except the salsa) were either on sale, or at the very low end of their price ranges.