Step-by-step recipe for making cottage cheese at home

10 servings

25 minutes

257 kcal

5/5 (1)

I have one friend who completely switched to homemade products. She has a lot of familiar farmers who supply her with only natural products, which she uses to prepare various sausages, cheeses and other foods.

She, of course, always treated us to her culinary masterpieces. I thought and thought and decided to also try making cheese at home. You know, I liked not only the whole process of preparing it, but also the resulting product. Even my kids, who only eat certain types of store-bought cheese, enjoyed devouring this homemade creation.

So, today let’s look at a recipe for making hard and processed cottage cheese at home from cottage cheese. They are relatively quick and easy to prepare. Such homemade food is not only tasty and more affordable, but also very healthy, because during cooking we do not use any additives that are so harmful to our body.

How to make cheese at home

Cheese can be made at home, and it is not as difficult as it seems at first glance. The advantages of homemade cheese are that it is not only very tasty, but also healthy, since only high-quality natural products are used in the preparation process without preservatives and other chemicals. In addition, you can make a dietary product if you use low-fat ingredients when making homemade cheese. Homemade curd cheese is a real delicacy that will delight both children and adults. In addition, you can prepare many interesting dishes from it, recipes for which are published on our website.

How to make homemade cheese? Secrets and useful recommendations from experienced chefs.

1. To make delicious cheese with your own hands at home, use only fresh cow or goat milk.
2. The milk mixture must be boiled in a pan with thick walls and a non-stick coating. If you do not adhere to this, the mixture will definitely burn, and the cheese will have an unpleasant smell and taste.
3. The final calorie content of the cheese directly depends on the fat content of the milk and cottage cheese that will be used when making homemade cheese. However, even despite this, milk should be taken with a fat content of at least 2.5%.

Thanks to such simple recipes, it is possible to prepare amazing, healthy products in the form of homemade cheese in just a few hours. You can also watch a video on this topic. Then the cooking process will go much faster.

Bon appetit!

Basics of making homemade cheese

Many types of cheese are prepared at home - hard, processed, Adyghe, Philadelphia, Suluguni, ricotta, mozzarella or cream cheese, which is spread on bread. The classic recipe for homemade cheese includes very fresh milk with a fat content of at least 2.5% (store-bought or country milk, cow or goat), kefir, butter, sour cream, cottage cheese, aromatic herbs and savory spices. The taste of cottage cheese can be varied with interesting additions - fried mushrooms, nuts, olives, vegetables, ham and herbs. You can experiment with products and invent your own cheeses while sticking to the basic technology. More experienced chefs cook cheeses with rennet, but you can do without it, at least at the initial stage.

The essence of all recipes is that milk is brought to a boil in a large and necessarily non-stick pan, the rest of the dairy products are added and heated for some time until the curd mass separates from the whey. After this, the cheese is suspended in several layers of gauze or the cheesecloth and cottage cheese are placed in a colander, and a weight is placed on top, which helps the cheese to finally get rid of the whey. The cooled cheese is placed in the refrigerator for several hours, although cheese experts say that the cheese should ripen and gain strength within 24 hours.

Classic recipe for making processed cheese

Making processed cheese using cottage cheese is quite simple; it does not require any special culinary skills. The main ingredient is homemade cottage cheese, but in addition to it you will need a few more components. The recipe is very practical, here is its detailed description.

Ingredients for preparation:

• 300 g of homemade high-fat cottage cheese;
• 0.5 coffee spoon of soda;
• 0.5 tsp. salt;
• eggs - one;
• 50 g butter.

Step-by-step cooking recipe

1. Having prepared all the necessary components, you can begin the cooking process. To make a delicious curd-based cheese, you need to carefully follow the instructions. So, homemade cottage cheese should be placed in a medium-sized container, such as a bowl or pan.

1. After this, you need to beat an egg into the cottage cheese and add the required amount of soda, which will provide the mixture with the necessary thickness.

1. To prevent the taste of the cheese from being bland, do not forget to add salt.
2. The resulting mass must be mixed well until it has a homogeneous consistency. Then you should grate the butter, previously frozen in the refrigerator, on a coarse grater. If the butter has a soft consistency, it can be cut into cottage cheese into medium-sized pieces.

1. Now it's the blender's turn. With its help, you need to beat the resulting mass until it becomes completely homogeneous and puree-like. The next step is to use a water bath to melt the cheese.

1. To do this, you will need a small metal pan; place the mixture whipped with a blender into it. You need to pour water into another container, slightly smaller in volume, and after it boils, place the pan with the cheese mixture on top. Don't forget about stirring. It is recommended to do this with a plastic spatula, which is usually used when baking cakes.
2. As it heats up, the curd mass will begin to rapidly thin out. You need to cook the cheese for an average of 7 minutes, stirring constantly.
3. During the cooking process, the cottage cheese should completely dissolve; when this happens, you can turn off the heat.

1. When hot, the cheese has a fairly liquid consistency, but as it cools, the mass thickens quite quickly. If this does not happen, then, if desired, you can boil the cheese mass for another 5-6 minutes. As excess moisture evaporates, the cheese thickens more intensely.
2. Cooled processed cheese can be placed in glass jars or plastic trays.

1. When the processed cottage cheese reaches room temperature, you can put it in the refrigerator, where it will thicken even more. After 3-4 hours, home-cooked, delicate and natural Yantar cheese will be ready to eat.

Adherents of unusual taste sensations and gourmets can complement the recipe by adding fried champignons (finely chopped) or sweet peppers to the cheese. You can also experiment with spices and herbs. Recommendations with photos will help young housewives prepare a delicious dessert.

Homemade cottage cheese

This delicious cheese takes time and a little inspiration to make, but your family is sure to love the results. Mix 1 kg of village cottage cheese with 1 liter of milk in a three-liter saucepan and, stirring, bring to a boil. At this time, in a small saucepan on a nearby burner, melt 200 g of butter in a water bath, and in a bowl mix 2 yolks with ¾ tbsp. l. salt and 1 tsp. soda As soon as the liquid in the pan begins to boil, we carefully strain it through cheesecloth and hang it. Let the cheese hang in the cheesecloth until the whey stops flowing and just starts dripping.

Now combine the melted butter with the yolks and cottage cheese in a bowl and heat the mass in a water bath, stirring vigorously with a spatula. Before our eyes, miracles will happen to the cheese mass - it will begin to foam, increase in size and thicken. And then, as soon as the foam subsides, we will finally see real cheese, and from that moment we need to boil it for another 10 minutes until it lags behind the walls of the dish.

Pour the cheese into a regular cake pan, greased with vegetable oil, and leave in the refrigerator for 4 hours. If we want to get a denser and harder cheese, we wrap it in parchment paper and place it under pressure for half a day. After this, you can serve the appetizer on the table and use the cheese to make sandwiches or other dishes.

Curd cheese recipe No. 2

There are times when we do not create new culinary miracles in the kitchen, believing that they are too difficult to prepare and the ingredients are not cheap. Curd cheese is a great way to break up the routine of our cuisine and delight us with its refreshing taste and nutritional abilities. Making it yourself at home is quite easy and quick, and you only need three main ingredients that you always have at home: milk, lemon (or vinegar) and salt.

Curd cheese is made by coagulating (curdling) hot milk with acid (usually lemon juice, although vinegar can also be used). It can also be curdled using animal or vegetable rennet, which can be purchased at the pharmacy. After coagulation, the milk is passed through a fine mesh or gauze cloth.

The yellow liquid that comes out is whey, which is great for making cake, bread, cookies and more. The solid part we get is cottage cheese. And not just cottage cheese, but your natural and artisan cottage cheese, tasty and healthy. Let's look at the second recipe for cottage cheese.

Ingredients:

• 1 liter of milk (preferably fresh)
• Juice of one lemon
• A pinch of salt

Recipe:

1. Pour the milk into a stainless steel pan and heat it to 85ºC.

2. Once the milk reaches the required temperature, add a pinch of salt. Stir. Squeeze the lemon juice into the milk, stir well again and remove the pan from the heat.

3. Let the milk rest for about 15 minutes. During this time, the milk should curdle and become lumpy. Place a piece of gauze in a colander and strain the curd over another large saucepan. Leave the colander over the pan for 30 minutes to allow excess whey to drain.

4. The time it takes for the whey to drain depends on what consistency you want your curd cheese to be. The longer the whey drains, the drier the cheese will be. You can speed up the process by connecting the corners of the gauze and squeezing the bag of cottage cheese to free it from excess liquid.

5. When the cream cheese is ready, transfer it to an airtight plastic container to prevent it from absorbing the smell of other foods in the refrigerator. This cheese can be stored for two to three days.

6. From the whey obtained through filtration, you can make cake, muffins, cookies, bread, smoothies and more. Don't pour it out. Like cottage cheese, if you don't plan to use it within 24-48 hours, you can freeze it in a container with ice for future use.

How to make homemade cheese very quickly

If you don’t have time to stand at the stove for a long time, you can use a simple recipe for milk cheese. To do this, bring 1 liter of 3.2% fat milk to a boil, add 30 ml of apple cider vinegar, 2 tbsp. l. butter, 1 tsp. dry herbs and 1 tsp. salt. Stirring the mixture, bring it to a boil again, remove from heat and, as usual, strain through cheesecloth. Lightly squeeze the curd lump, place the cheese under a weight - usually for this purpose they take a round wooden cutting board, on which they place a stone and bricks. Many housewives use a special press for salting lard or a regular saucepan in which they place something heavy, such as a jar of homemade ingredients. It is believed that the load should weigh 10 kg or more. Homemade five-minute cheese is not kept under pressure for very long - until it cools down, and then it is cut into appetizing pieces and served.

Useful tips for beginning cheese makers

1. To make cheese, use raw milk. A dairy product purchased in a store has been pasteurized in production, which in turn destroys the bacteria contained in raw milk;
2. If it is not possible to buy real raw milk, take regular pasteurized milk and add kefir to it as a sour starter. The fermented milk product will help partially restore the biodiversity lost during pasteurization;
3. Salt helps remove moisture from the curd. As a result, we get hard cheese, which, thanks to salt, is also better stored;
4. It is better to replace ordinary gauze with thick fabric. You can use a pillowcase;
5. Homemade cottage cheese can be spread on bread, served with fresh vegetables, or used for filling.

Your suffering from the lack of quality cheese such as mozzarella or camembert will end if you make homemade cottage cheese. It just seems that the process of making cheese is long and labor-intensive. It will actually take about 30 minutes to cook and one night to rest.

In the morning you will already have high-quality homemade cheese on your table. You just need to prepare for the process - buy good cottage cheese and find homemade raw milk.

How to make cream cheese at home

This simple and easy-to-prepare cheese will surprise you with its delicate and soft taste. It cooks very quickly. We leave a liter of natural cream for 2 days in a warm place, when it sours, strain it through cheesecloth, let the excess whey drain off, or squeeze it out lightly. We place the cream under a press weighing about 3 kg, and after half an hour we enjoy the delicious treat.

There is another recipe for making cream cheese, which we know as Philadelphia. To do this, we dilute in 1 tsp. water ¼ tsp. citric acid and a pinch of salt, pour it all into a liter of 25% cream and cook over heat for about 10 minutes, stirring constantly, until the creamy mass separates from the liquid.

Pour the cream into a colander lined with gauze and leave the cheese for 2 hours, stirring occasionally so that not a drop of liquid remains. Next, transfer the cheese to a closed container and let it ripen in the refrigerator for 24 hours. Soft cream cheese is used to make desserts, spread it on white bread, or simply eat it with a spoon as a dessert.

How to make goat cheese in your own kitchen

You can make any cheese yourself. We are sharing with you a simple recipe for making goat cheese.

You will need ingredients:

• 4 liters of high-quality goat milk;
• 60 ml whey or kefir;
• 10 grams of table salt.

It will take 4 hours to cook. 100 g serving contains 169 kcal.

Step 1. You need to make cottage cheese from goat milk. To do this, heat the milk over medium heat to about 35 degrees.

Step 2. For the starter, add whey or kefir and mix.

Step 3. Close the pan tightly with a lid. Maintain the heat until the temperature of the milk is 35 degrees. It will take 60 minutes to ferment the milk.

Step 4. Leave to roll for another 60 minutes, covering the container with a lid. Maintain the temperature of the goat's milk to approximately 35 degrees. This thermal regime promotes milk coagulation and the formation of cheese mass.

Step 5. Once the cheese curd is formed, cut it into small cubes. Place them back into the pan.

Step 6. Stir the cubes every five minutes. Cooking time will be from 30 to 60 minutes. The temperature must be maintained at the same level.

Step 7. Drain the whey, add eggs. Leave a little whey to prepare the brine.

Step 8. Transfer the cheese mixture into the prepared pans. Fill them to the very top.

Step 9. Prepare brine to rinse the cheese. To do this, dissolve 15 ml (1 tablespoon) of salt in warm whey. It should only be stored in the refrigerator and used to wash the crust.

Step 10. Keep the product in the molds for a day. Place a container under them to allow the whey to drain. During the entire aging period, the cheese must be turned over twice so that the piece turns out even.

Step 11. Remove the cheese from the molds and start salting. Sprinkle each wheel of cheese with salt, one teaspoon per wheel. The entire surface of the cheese should be covered with salt. If there is not enough salt, simply increase the amount.

Step 12: Place the product on a rack to allow excess whey to drain. For about a day. During this period of time, turn the cheese 1 to 2 times. When the wheel of cheese is dry to the touch, put it in the refrigerator to age.

Homemade mascarpone cheese

Gourmet Italian cheese can also be prepared at home. To do this, mix 200 ml of milk with 800 ml of sour cream and grind until smooth. Then put the sour cream and milk mixture on the fire, heat it, stir, but do not boil, otherwise the cheese will be hopelessly spoiled. Add 2 tsp. lemon juice, turn the heat to minimum and continue heating until the sour cream turns into cottage cheese. Turn off the heat, leave the cottage cheese in the whey for another 5 minutes, and then put it in a colander in cheesecloth and forget about it for an hour. After a while, carefully squeeze the cheese to check if there is any whey left in it, put it in a beautiful bowl, close the lid tightly and cool. You can taste it right away! By the way, mascarpone is used to make the most delicate tiramisu cake, Easter cake, soufflé, cream and many other delicious dishes.

Homemade cheese

Fermented milk cheese with a pleasant salty taste is indispensable in salads, and you can prepare it yourself. To do this, we bring 1 liter of milk to a boil, and then, without turning down the heat, throw 2 tbsp into it. l. salt. By this point, we should have 3 eggs prepared, beaten with 200 g of sour cream, which we pour into boiling milk.

Stirring, cook the cheese mixture, continuing to do this even after boiling - perhaps 5 minutes will be enough. When the whey begins to separate from the thickened cheese, pour the contents of the pan into a colander with gauze and hang for 3 hours. Without removing the finished cheese from the fabric, place it under a press until it becomes denser. Bryndza is added not only to salads, but also to snacks, pies and soups. During the cooking process, you can add a little greenery to the cheese. In general, this is a very good product, without which it is difficult to imagine home cooking.

How to cook

Prepare - measure out food. Boil milk - when it boils, add cottage cheese. Stir and simmer over low heat for 10 - 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. During cooking, the whey should separate - a clear yellowish liquid.

Use a thick-bottomed or non-stick saucepan for cooking.

Turn off the heat, let the mixture cool slightly and place in a colander lined with gauze. Let the serum drain, you can help a little - squeeze it out with your hands.

Put the cheese and curd mass back into the pan (you can take another one - smaller), add salt and soda - stir thoroughly, add eggs and knead the mass properly again.

Place the saucepan over medium heat and melt the cheese mixture, stirring constantly. When it warms up enough and becomes viscous and homogeneous, you can reduce the heat. The process should take about 15 minutes. The finished mass will thicken and look like a thick puree.

The thicker the cheese mass, the denser the cheese will be.

Then add the butter and knead for another 5 minutes - the butter should melt and be absorbed into the mixture.

Remove the saucepan from the heat. We prepare the mold - grease the silicone one with oil, you can take any container - line it with cling film. Lay out the cheese mixture, compact it slightly, and smooth it out. Or you can, without using a mold, put the mass on cling film and form a sausage, twist it like candy.

Let our cheese cool at room temperature, and then put it in the refrigerator. In an hour or two, the homemade cheese will be ready.

Homemade ricotta with kefir

Let's try to make amazingly delicious Italian cheese, especially since it is not at all difficult. So, we heat 1 liter of milk, but under no circumstances boil it - it is better to immediately remove the pan from the heat. Add 1 tsp to hot milk. salt, 2 tsp. sugar, 150 ml kefir and 4 tbsp. l. lemon juice, and then leave it for half an hour until it curdles. Then we put the resulting cottage cheese on a cheesecloth in a colander and hang it - all the liquid should drain. This delicate curd cheese is used to make pizza, salads, sauces, fillings for dumplings and desserts.

Processed homemade cheese

This cheese is prepared very quickly, and eaten even faster, because it is very tasty, aromatic and healthy. Grind 400 g of cottage cheese until smooth, mix with 2 eggs and 1 tsp. baking soda and place the pan on very low heat. Melt the cheese for 15 minutes, stirring constantly, and then add any toppings: herbs, garlic, mushrooms, ham - whatever your heart desires. The cheese is ready - all you have to do is cool it and serve it with fresh bread or pasta. The cheese can also be placed in silicone molds and stored in the refrigerator.

Homemade curd cheese is the most delicious delicacy in the world, and if you have never tried making it, don’t put it off. And although there is a proverb: “It takes talent to make cheese,” every housewife can develop this talent. The main thing is to try, experiment and share your finds and discoveries with us!

Dietary processed cheese from the microwave

For those watching their figure, recipes with a lot of fat are not very suitable. But this method of making processed cheese is definitely suitable. Its calorie content is low, only 100 kcal per 100 g, and its taste and consistency are not much different from traditional ones.

The cooking method also differs from the classic one - we will melt it in the microwave. You can melt any other cheese in the same way.

Products:

• package (200 g) low-fat cottage cheese
• 1 raw egg
• 1 tsp without top soda
• 2 tbsp. skim milk
• salt - 1/3 tsp.
• spices, herbs - optional.

Step-by-step preparation:

1. Mix the cottage cheese well with soda and leave for 40-60 minutes in a bowl covered with a lid. During this time, the soda will have time to react with lactic acid and the structure of the cottage cheese will change significantly.
2. And then everything is simple. Add salt, milk and egg to the mixture, mix and microwave for 1 minute.
3. We take it out, mix it again and put it in the microwave again for a minute. We repeat this step if necessary.
4. If the cheese is not smooth enough, you can beat it with a blender.
5. Add herbs and spices to this molten hot mass and, putting it in bowls, put it in the refrigerator. Nothing worse than Amber!