A couple weeks ago I was watching the show The Best Thing I Ever Ate. One of the dishes featured was a savory cheesecake. It looked pretty good, although I can’t remember at all now what was in it. It got me thinking…maybe I should try making a savory cheesecake.

I had some leftover chili I didn’t know what to do with. So I turned it into chili cheesecake.

I honestly had about 5 minutes to prepare this dish after running in the door from a visit to the the doctor and running errands. I thought it might be a huge failure. I didn’t have a recipe. I didn’t measure. I just dumped, mixed and stuck it in the oven. Praying it would have enough time to bake and that it wouldn’t be a pan of slop when it came out.

To my great surprise it actually turned out really well. Both of the kids even loved it.

This is a great way to use up leftovers and come up with any kind of savory cheesecake you can imagine. You can eat it as is or use it as a dip.

It’s been almost a week now since I made it so I’ll do my best to remember what I did 😛  I just made a small dish. You can scale it up to make it in a pie dish or spring form pan.

Chili Cheesecake

1/2 cup crushed tortilla chips (for a “crust”…this is optional…the chips get soft when baked)
1 cup chili (you could use taco meat, cooked ground meat, shredded chicken, or any vegetables you like)
1 cup homemade cream cheese
3/4 cup homemade sour cream
1 egg
2 egg yolks
seasoning to taste

Place tortilla chips in the bottom of a small baking dish (I used a 4 cup pyrex dish). Top the chips with half of the chili.

Mix the rest of the chili, the cream cheese, the sour cream and the eggs. Adjust seasoning to taste.

Pour the mixture over the layer of chili.

Bake at 400 degrees for about an hour (until set all the way through). Let set 5 minutes before serving.