Hard cheese at home: recipe with photo

If you love homemade cheese, then our article will be useful to you. We want to talk about how to make cheese at home. This is not as difficult as it might seem at first glance. Very often, mothers do not want to give their babies cheeses purchased in supermarkets, because they contain many preservatives. And is it possible to know for sure what products they are made from?

And therefore, naturally, questions arise about their usefulness. But having made hard cheese at home from milk, you definitely won’t go to the store for it again.

What products are used to make hard cheese at home?

For cooking you will need completely ordinary products. The process itself takes about half an hour, plus the time during which the cheese will harden in the refrigerator (you can even leave it overnight).

To prepare, you need to acquire the following ingredients:

Homemade soft cottage cheese – 0.7 kg.
Homemade milk – 1 liter.
Soda – 1 teaspoon.
Salt – 2 teaspoon.
Eggs – 2 pcs.
Butter – 2 tablespoons.

Homemade hard cheese recipe

The cottage cheese should be poured into a pan and thoroughly kneaded with your hands so that there are no large lumps. Then fill it with milk and put it on fire. The mass must be constantly stirred until the whey begins to peel off, the curd itself begins to form lumps and harden, as if melting, and the liquid itself becomes colorless. Next, you need to turn off the fire and place the cottage cheese on cheesecloth so that all the liquid is removed from it.

You need to put butter on the bottom of the pan and put it on the fire. It is better to use non-stick dishes, because the cheese can stick to the bottom and burn. Next, add eggs, salt, soda, and cottage cheese to the pan. Using a wooden spoon, mix until the mass becomes homogeneous, without any grains. This usually takes about half an hour. It all depends on the quality of the cottage cheese. The softer it is, the less time it will take.

When the cheese has acquired a homogeneous consistency, take any mold, cover it with cling film and place it there, compacting it thoroughly. This is done so that the finished product is more homogeneous. Next we put it in the refrigerator to harden. That's all for making hard cheese at home. As you can see, the recipe is completely simple, and the ingredients used are the most common ones. Try it and you will appreciate the taste of a homemade product.

How to make marble cheese

The main feature of marble cheese is its unique color and pattern obtained when cut. It was previously thought that it was impossible to do this at home, but this turned out not to be the case.

Required Products:

400 grams of sour cream;
6 chicken eggs;
2 liters of milk;
150 milliliters of carrot juice;
a tablespoon of salt.

Cooking time is about 50 minutes of active process and 6 hours of maturation.

The calorie content will be about 325 kilocalories per 100 grams of cheese.

Preparation procedure:

The first step is to divide the products into 2 parts so that the first contains: 200 grams of sour cream, 3 eggs, a liter of milk, all the juice, half a tablespoon of salt. Accordingly, the rest will go into the second part;
the first container is filled with milk, which is brought to a boil;
add salt (half a spoon);
sour cream, eggs and juice mixed in one bowl are gradually added to a pan with boiling milk;
The mixture boils for about 5 minutes until the curd is completely separated from the whey. In this case, the components are constantly mixed;
a colander is covered with gauze and the contents of the pan are poured onto it to drain the liquid;
The second part of the cheese mass is prepared in a completely similar way, but juice is excluded from the ingredients, so the color will be white;
Having gotten rid of the liquid from the first part of the cheese, move the mass into a bowl, and in its place pour the second part and let the whey drain for 10 minutes;
pour the first part from the bowl into a colander with gauze and light cheese mixture. We carefully mix the ingredients so that we get the pattern we need (without enthusiasm);
hang the gauze over the sink for 20 minutes (this will remove excess moisture);
Place the finished cheese in the mold and press for 6 hours, after which the hard marble cheese is moved to the refrigerator.

How many calories are homemade hard cheese?

In general, it is believed that ordinary hard cheese contains up to two hundred and fifty calories per hundred grams. For some reason, the literature indicates a figure of one hundred and thirteen calories for homemade. In fact, this parameter will depend on what products you initially take.

If you set yourself the goal of making low-calorie diet cheese, you need to take low-fat cottage cheese and milk. And those who prefer to get a satisfying product can take homemade fatty dairy ingredients. The result will certainly please you.

Some tips from experienced cheese makers

Let's reveal some secrets that will help you not spoil your homemade cheese:

Do not use an aluminum or cast iron pan, otherwise the product will have a metallic taste;
any gauze can be used again by first washing it with cold water and bleach and then boiling it;
It is best to use special plastic containers for cheese. They are not expensive at all, have any shape, and are equipped with drainage holes;
You can safely make the press yourself. A can of water or bottle will do. On average, 1 kilogram of cheese requires a press of 2 kilos. However, this parameter can be adjusted to suit you.

Homemade marbled hard cheese

We would like to tell you another recipe for hard cheese at home. To prepare, you need to grate the carrots on a very fine grater. Mix milk and cottage cheese in a saucepan and add carrots. Boil all this over low heat for seven minutes.

As a result, we will get a mass that needs to be poured onto gauze. The liquid should drain. Then add butter, salt, eggs, sour cream, soda and a little garlic (optional, if you like it). All ingredients need to be thoroughly mixed and the dish put back on the fire and cook for another ten minutes. You will see when the mass hardens.

Transfer the finished product into a bowl, compact it and let it harden. So the marbled hard cheese, made at home, is ready.

Adyghe cheese

This type of cheese is made from fresh whole milk. One of the important conditions for obtaining Adyghe cheese is the low acidity of the product. If the milk has high acidity, very little cheese is produced, and its quality is low, since soured milk does not curdle well after adding vinegar. Vinegar 9% is used to curdle milk. Experienced cheesemakers also replace vinegar with sour whey.

To prepare Adyghe cheese you will need the following ingredients:

whole milk - 12 l;
vinegar - 1 tbsp;
salt - 500 g.

You also need two layers of gauze and a colander for discarding the cheese, a thermometer and a saucepan with a thick bottom. At the preparatory stage, the ends of the gauze are tied together in such a way as to form loops for hanging.

Historical excursion

Once upon a time, making homemade cheese and cottage cheese was common. Nowadays, not every housewife will undertake such a task. Making hard cheese from cottage cheese at home is not at all difficult, although it will take time, but the result will please you. You will receive a delicious homemade and healthy product without harmful additives and palm oils.

People have been making cheese since time immemorial: one version says that the first mention of it dates back to the eighth millennium BC. In general, his invention is associated with the domestication of sheep. It is believed that this happened by accident. If at least something is known about the time of the appearance of cheese, then they do not know the place of its invention. Presumably this is the Middle East or Central Asia and Europe or the Sahara.

Some researchers claim that cheeses were invented by nomadic Arabs.

Calorie content

If you decide to make real hard cheese and see that you succeeded, you should understand that the calorie content will be approximately equal to hard cheese from the store. The exact nutritional value of such a product greatly depends on what kind of milk was used, therefore, for different types of cheese, the energy value can range from a relatively modest 210 kcal to a very dangerous 360 kcal. For this reason, it is easier to determine calorie content based on the original product and its quantity.

You should not think that calories are strictly preserved, but you will probably be able to find an approximate result - in this case, a small percentage should be subtracted from the total amount of calories, because the resulting whey is also not a completely low-fat product.

A similar picture is observed with BJU indicators, only proteins and carbohydrates, unlike fats, are usually presented in milk in approximately standard quantities. If you trust those experts who indicate that homemade cheese contains 110 kcal, then it turns out that the product contains 12.7% protein, approximately 5% fat, and about 4% carbohydrates. In practice, in real hard cheese the protein content will be approximately twice as high, and the fat content will be approximately three times higher, while the carbohydrate content in the final product is 2-3 times less than 4%.

Using spices in making hard cheese

Currently, any supermarket has a considerable assortment of cheeses: hard, soft, smoked, cream. However, not every one of them can be classified as a given product category. Conveyor production has done its job. And we often eat not a natural product, but a mixture of additives, and sometimes even chemical substitutes for products (like milk-containing inventions), which do not even remotely resemble a natural product.

But even from this situation there is a way out: you can make hard cheese at home. The recipe is not at all complicated, and the ingredients used are quite ordinary. When cooking at home, you can diversify the resulting cheeses. For this, different spices and herbs are used. During cooking, you can add garlic, pepper, paprika, dill, cumin, and mustard seeds. It all depends on your taste and what kind of product you want. If you like savory cheeses, add something to spice it up. In general, there is room for your imagination to run wild.

Subtleties of making homemade cheeses

Speaking about how to make hard cheese at home, you need to know some nuances that will help you.

To make it, it is better to take homemade or farm cottage cheese. In stores you can purchase low-quality curd products. Such raw materials will never make cheese.
You should also take homemade milk. Pasteurized from the store will not work. Well, if you have the opportunity to buy only factory milk, then take the fattest one with a short shelf life.
Cheeses ripen well only when their weight is at least half a kilogram.
Cheese has a high fat content, and therefore the fattier the ingredients for it, the more tasty and tender it turns out.
As a rule, a home-made product turns out softer than the store-bought version. This is due to the fact that hardness depends, first of all, on the pressure of the press: the higher it is, the harder the cheese. This is not always possible at home, but is it even necessary?
The longer you keep your product ready, the richer its taste will be.
If you don't have a cheese pan, you can use a regular colander or an air fryer strainer.
The whey remaining after production can be used to make pancakes or knead yeast dough with it. They also cook okroshka on it.
The shelf life of homemade cheese is no more than a week in the refrigerator. It is better to wrap it in a cotton towel or paper.

Delicious delicacy with homemade mold

This type of cheese has a huge cost, so not everyone can buy it. It’s all because of the taste, which is almost impossible to put into words. However, there is a way to try the delicacy by preparing it at home. For this you will need:

special culture P. Roqueforti. This is a safe and beneficial type of mold for the body, which is quite easily found in online stores. One bag is enough for 1000 liters, so we need the edge of a teaspoon;
8 liters of milk;
0.25 teaspoon mesophilic starter;
the same amount of rennet;
0.25 teaspoon calcium chloride;

The preparation time will be about 16 days, with the active part of the process taking no more than 2 hours.

Calorie content - 340 kcal per 100 grams.

Method for making hard blue cheese at home:

the milk is brought to a uniform temperature of 27 to 33 degrees. The process is controlled using a special culinary thermometer;
After this, sourdough and mold spill out. However, you cannot mix them together; two spoons are used to add;
take a slotted spoon of the appropriate size and slowly mix the product;
also, at the same time, calcium chloride dissolved in 100 grams of water is poured out;
without stopping the mixing process, the enzyme is added;
leave the pan with the contents for 2 hours;
the resulting thick mass is transferred to a colander lined with gauze;
The gauze is suspended for 60 minutes to remove liquid. For such an amount of milk, one bag of cheese mass is not enough; there will be several of them. Therefore, it is necessary to take care of the hanging and draining areas in advance;
each bag of product along with gauze is placed under a press for 12 hours;
after this the cheese is broken into small pieces and salted;
the salted product is placed in prepared forms and placed in the refrigerator for 48 hours;
at the end of two days, using a wooden stick, holes are made in the cheese for the air needed by the mold;
the product is moved into containers with drainage holes and at a temperature of 10 degrees (cellar or refrigerator set accordingly) ripens for about 2 weeks;
and only now can you get ready-made hard blue cheese, treat your friends and acquaintances to it, and then be surprised at its enormous cost in the store.

Instead of an afterword

In our article we talked about how to make hard cheese at home. After all, many simply cannot imagine their life without it. In fact, we widely use this product in preparing various dishes. Most varieties can be prepared at home without much effort. So try it! And you will be pleased with the result. Believe me, you will never go to the store for cheese again. After all, a homemade product turns out much tastier and healthier, which is important. And you will always be sure of the freshness of the product, since cheeses from the supermarket are far from ideal and very quickly become moldy, after which you can simply throw them away. We wish you good luck with your preparation. Bon appetit!