I made Guy Fieri's legendary Trash Can Nachos, and they're the perfect Super Bowl snack (2024)

With this being my second adventure through Flavortown, I knew this seemingly straightforward recipe would have some flavor home runs mixed with interesting twists.

Read on as I attempt to make these larger-than-life nachos.

There aren't too many ingredients involved, but I had to make a few substitutions

I started by making the marinade for my carne asada, which is typically made with grilled and sliced beef.

The recipe calls for only 8 ounces, but I enjoy steak so I wished the amount was doubled.

Fortunately, the marinade was easy to throw together. I squeezed the juice of a lime into a bowl, added about four minced garlic cloves, and a teaspoon of kosher salt.

I put the 8 ounces of steak and marinade in a plastic bag, then refrigerated it for about 30 minutes.

While the meat marinated, I started preparing my black beans.

The recipe calls for soaking dried black beans overnight. That felt like an unnecessary step so I used a can of unsalted, unflavored black beans instead.

I dumped the drained beans into a small pot, covered it with a couple of inches of water, brought it to a boil, then reduced it to a simmer.

I then added half of a minced sweet onion, a few cloves of minced garlic, kosher salt, and a teaspoon of oregano to the pot of simmering beans.

I couldn't find the Mexican oregano the recipe asks for so I used the dried oregano I got at my nearby grocery store.

The recipe says to cook the beans for about an hour until tender, but I just let them simmer on high until the liquid evaporated.

This simmering process took about an hour and a half, which gave me time to do everything else.

I didn't have an outdoor grill, so I used a grill-like skillet pan for the steak

While my beans were cooking, I started cooking my marinated meat on an oiled, super-hot stovetop skillet.

I grilled my meat until both sides were nicely charred and the garlic bits were blackened, about five minutes on each side.

After the meat was ready, I set it aside and let it rest.

Definitely turn your oven fan on if you're doing this indoors — my apartment and I smelled like a taqueria after cooking the meat.

While my meat rested and beans simmered, I gathered all of my cheeses

The recipe calls for five cheeses: Oaxaca, Asadero, Monterey Jack, mild cheddar, and Cotija.

I couldn't find Asadero, but the "Mexican Blend" bags of shredded cheese I found at the store says it contains Asadero, Monterey Jack, queso blanco, and mild cheddar. I figured it would be fine to use this as a more affordable substitute.

To start the SMC, I melted a couple of tablespoons of butter in a saucepan and added a bit of flour to make a roux. I whisked them together for five minutes and then mixed in a cup each of whole milk and heavy cream.

I brought this to a boil and then threw an 8-ounce bag of the Mexican Blend and 2 ounces of the Oaxaca cheese into the pot.

This pot of SMC was a thing of beauty

As the cheese melted, I kept whisking it to avoid burning. I then added a generous few dashes of cayenne pepper and cumin, a handful of minced jalapenos, a pour of jalapeno juice, and two scoops of pico de gallo.

It smelled absolutely amazing and the sauce started getting an incredibly gooey, thick texture.

Next, I chopped my meat and prepared my ingredients for layering.

My ingredients for layering included carne asada, SMC, more of the shredded cheese, Cotija, red onion, cilantro, black beans, pico de gallo, jalapeño, and chips.

On the side, I had sliced avocado and radish slices for garnish and serving with the nachos.

It turns out you don't actually need a trash can or even an extremely large pot for this recipe

I honestly thought I would need a trash can or enormous pot to make these nachos — but the recipe says a 110-ounce can or metal bucket works well, though that seems to be a bit on the smaller side.

I decided to use a medium-sized metal pot.

I accidentally used chips as the first layer when I should have started with the SMC, which probably would have helped the nachos stay together better.

Regardless, I started layering all my ingredients one after the other, alternating with layers of chips. Once the pot was filled, I tried to invert it onto a flat plate.

I was worried the tower would just collapse, but it actually held together quite well.

The nachos didn't stay perfectly in the pot form, but it was still impressive

Next time, I will start with a layer of cheese, though I poured more over the top of my nachos later on. I also added more garnishes, like cilantro and red onion.

I added some lime wedges for color to finish the plate and eventually ate the dish with radishes, avocado, and extra jalapenos.

It didn't look like the prettiest dish in the world, but the toppings seemed evenly distributed throughout the chips.

The nachos were absolutely delicious, and I would totally make them again

These nachos were, as Fieri would say, "bomb-dot-com."

The carne asada was extremely flavorful and had an excellent zest to it, thanks to the lime and grilled garlic bits that I had scraped off of my pan.

The SMC was my favorite part of the nachos. It was so flavorful and packed with all the goodness of cheese and spices that really made this dish so addictive.

The cumin was a wonderful touch in flavor that was unexpected but tasted fantastic in the queso. I'll be adding cumin to every queso I make from now on.

The black beans were also extremely flavorful yet didn't distract from the rest of the layers of flavor complexity.

Although normally I'd have just heated up a can of preseasoned beans, the simplicity of onion, garlic, salt, and oregano was perfect combined with the flavorful queso. The steak was excellently seasoned — I loved the lime flavor.

I ate about a fourth of the Trash Can Nachos myself so next time I'd double the ingredients except for the chips.

These nachos were perfect all around, and I'll definitely be making these again.

This story was originally published on February 2, 2021, and most recently updated on February 8, 2024.