How to Make Homemade Cheese

  4.7 – 51 reviews  

This chicken is baked in buttermilk without breading; delish!

Prep Time: 45 mins
Cook Time: 1 hr
Total Time: 1 hr 45 mins
Servings: 24
Yield: 1 1/2 pounds

Ingredients

  1. 1 gallon whole milk
  2. ¼ cup white vinegar
  3. 1 pinch salt

Instructions

  1. Gather all ingredients.
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  3. Heat milk in a large pot until the temperature reaches 195 degrees F (90 degrees C), stirring constantly to prevent scorching on the bottom.
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  5. Remove from the heat and stir in vinegar. Let stand for 10 minutes.
  6. Line a mesh strainer with cheesecloth and set over a large bowl.
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  8. Stir salt into milk; pour through the prepared strainer. Let curds strain for 1 hour. The milk should separate into a white solid part and a yellowish liquid (whey). Discard the whey.
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  10. Pat cheese into a ball and remove the cheesecloth.
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  12. Wrap in plastic and store in the refrigerator until ready to use. Fresh cheese will usually last about 1 week.
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  14. Apple cider vinegar can be used in place of white vinegar.

Reviews

Linda Flores
Really great easy recipe, tasted amazing would recommend it to any beginner like me
James Mcdonald
I MADE IT WITH LACTOSE FREE WHOLE MILK, AND IT WORKED!! I made it a little hotter (198 degrees) and used the 1/4 + 1/8 cup vinegar. It is tasty even warm. It’s now in the fridge chilling in the reused salsa containers. Next time I’ll try adding some spices for fun. It isn’t a robust cheesy flavor, but I’m just hoping it melts on tortilla chips or on pizza!
Dennis Collier
OMGosh! Soooo delicious! I love cheese and have never made my own. I had a half gallon of milk a tad past the date but still fresh and I found this recipe. I’m so excited! It’s so yummy I can’t stop sampling it while I’m waiting for the hour to be up while it drains any remaining liquid. I could eat the whole thing! Made a wonderful heaping mound of cheese!! I used white vinegar because that’s what I had and there is no taste at all of it in the curds. I did return it to the heat and cook a bit longer once I added the vinegar and every ounce of white milk murkiness cleared up! I cannot wait to eat this cheese and I will definitely make this recipe again! Thank you so much!!
Cindy Turner
I had 2 cups of half and half that was expiring, so I used 1/8 of everything. Seems to have worked well. Made about 1/2 cup – I think the extra fat in the half and half helped with the yield. Now, to make some bread with the whey.
Lauren Ramsey
So easy! I used a cotton tea towel instead of cheese cloth with no problem, and followed other reviewer recommendation to add salt to cheese after straining. I used it in lasagna, and I’m curious to try more flavor variations in the future.
Jon Atkins
So easy to make and tastes really good. I made chorizo , potatoes, and eggs and topped it with crumbled pieces of this cheese and salsa. Make some flour tortillas and pretend you are in San Diego.
Harold Peterson
I followed recipe, got a small amount of cheese so I added another 1/4th cup vinegar over heat and then another before i finally got results! It tasted awesome and I’ll make again!
Laura Robinson
Very easy to make. Tastes delicious! So many possibilities!
Parker English
I used half white vinegar and half cider. It was tasty and easy to spread.
Jimmy Fox
I made this cheese twice. It’s easy, fresh and I will never buy ricotta again. This is just too easy!
Chris Davis
Easy. Great way to use past date milk. Add in herbs if desired. Chives, dill, celery seed…
Pamela Cook
I used fresh farm milk, salt and vinegar. This brought back memories as I haven’t made cottage cheese in 35 years! The outcome was very good, but not as good as I remembered from years ago. I will make this again, but I won’t wait 35 years to do it again.
Matthew Scott
Throw away the whey! Nevah! feed it to your dogs or use it in your garden but never throw away… great source of minerals and enzymes – I drink it myself. The cheese in this recipe is pretty mild so I dress it up with some fresh garlic scapes or chives – sometimes rosemary and thyme and olive oil. It ‘s amazing with scrambled eggs or on a tortilla…
Brent Graves
Have made several times with no problem. Showed my sister how at Christmas an after I addd the vinegar very little happened. I know I let the milk get to hot. Let it cool added more vinegar and presto cheese. Very forgiving recipe. My sister is hooked on it
Thomas George
This will be my first Allrecipes review because I just HAD to! This cheese is incredible and SO simple. I’m so happy we can just make our own cheese at home and flavor it any way we want! My 5 and 7 year old learned about cheese making, had a blast making it and LOVED the results! My daughter has been eating it with a spoon all night! We used just your average gallon of whole milk from the store and it worked perfectly. We probably added an extra two tablespoons of vinegar to make sure we got all of the curd. After the cheese was all done we added a generous amount of salt and it was great just like that. For fun I sautéed a bit of garlic (just the jarred kind), and chopped up a sprig of rosemary. Added those to the cheese, mixed it up and it was INCREDIBLE! We can’t get enough! So excited to use this and try different herb variations. The ease of this makes it 100% worth it! Thank you so much for this recipe! We will be using it often!
Lisa Lloyd
Nice easy cheese. But don’t throw away your whey. You can make ricotta out of it. My Italian Grandmother used to do this.
Sarah Bradford
I have been using this recipe for several years now. The biggist change I have made to it is to use Lemmon juice instead of vinegar.
Brandon Hopkins
Who knew making queso fresco was soooo easy!… Followed other reviwers suggestions I added the salt at the very end and also added fresh chives from my garden so good! We spread this on crackers and my daughter and I really enjoyed it!Thanks Sunflower for sharing your recipe! Elvira S.
Melanie Salinas
can this cheese be used to make cheesecake
Mallory Mills
This was super easy to make, even though I used coffee filters in place of cheesecloth, and I did half the recipe because I was unsure of how it would turn out. I now see that the flavour came out a bit blah, so next time I will season it with herbs/garlic/etc.
Kristen Stout
we tried this according to the recipe. it did not work. after we determined that it was essentially a waste, we decided to experiment to see if we could get it to turn out. after adding a lot more vinegar than called for, and waiting overnight before straining, it was not a bad bowl of cheese.

 

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