Slow Cooker Sausage Cheese Dip

Two weeks out. The final stretch. Rosetta's wedding binder has reached a thickness that suggests it could double as a doorstop, and the group text between Rosetta, Angela, Dorothy, and Charlie (who is coordinating from Nashville) generates more messages per day than my mail route delivers. I have been excluded from the group text by mutual agreement of all parties, which I accept with the dignity of a man who knows when he's outranked.

My focus is the meat. I've made a spreadsheet — yes, a spreadsheet, the first one I've ever made, created with Walter Jr.'s help because Walter Jr. speaks spreadsheet the way I speak smoke. The spreadsheet tracks: start times, target temperatures, wood supply (eighty pounds of hickory, twenty pounds of cherry, ordered from the wood supplier on Summer Avenue), equipment needs (two smokers, two meat thermometers, tongs, gloves, foil, butcher paper), and the transportation plan (Walter Jr.'s truck for the shoulders, my truck for the ribs and sides).

This is the most organized I've been about BBQ in my life. Uncle Clyde would laugh. He did everything by feel — no thermometers, no spreadsheets, just his hand over the firebox and forty years of intuition. But Uncle Clyde was feeding forty people at a church picnic, not two hundred at a wedding, and scale requires structure, and structure requires a spreadsheet, and a spreadsheet requires Walter Jr., and Walter Jr. requires patience, because the boy explains things slowly, which is ironic given that he works at FedEx, where everything is supposed to arrive on time.

I made cornbread this week — three skillets' worth — and froze two of them for the reception. The cornbread will be served alongside the pork, cut into wedges, golden and crusty, the foundation beneath the feast. Every building needs a foundation. Every meal needs a bread. And every wedding needs a father-in-law who shows up with cornbread and pork and the absolute determination that his son's reception will be the best-fed event in the history of Orange Mound.

Now, cornbread and pulled pork are the backbone of this reception — that’s non-negotiable — but when you’re feeding two hundred people and the smokers won’t be done until the last possible minute, you need something warm and ready the second guests walk in. That’s where this sausage cheese dip comes in. I set it up in the slow cooker the morning of, let it do its thing while I’m managing smoke and spreadsheets, and by the time folks start lining up, there’s something hot and satisfying waiting for them — perfect for scooping with those cornbread wedges straight off the platter.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 2 hours | Total Time: 2 hours 15 minutes | Servings: 16

Ingredients

1 lb ground pork sausage (hot or mild)
1 lb Velveeta cheese, cubed
1 (10 oz) can diced tomatoes with green chiles (such as Rotel), undrained
1 (8 oz) package cream cheese, cubed
1/4 cup whole milk
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
Tortilla chips or cornbread wedges, for serving

Instructions

Brown the sausage. Cook the ground pork sausage in a large skillet over medium-high heat, breaking it into crumbles, until fully cooked and browned, about 7–8 minutes. Drain any excess grease.
Load the slow cooker. Add the cooked sausage, cubed Velveeta, diced tomatoes with green chiles, cream cheese, milk, garlic powder, and smoked paprika to the slow cooker. Stir to combine.
Cook low and slow. Cover and cook on LOW for 2 hours, stirring every 30 minutes, until the cheese is fully melted and the dip is smooth and creamy.
Serve warm. Give the dip a final stir and switch the slow cooker to the WARM setting. Serve with tortilla chips or cornbread wedges for dipping.

Nutrition (per serving)

Slow Cooker Sausage Cheese Dip — The Side That Feeds Two Hundred