Easy Homemade Cheese

Fresh cheese is a wonderful treat, and making homemade cheese never fails to make me feel pretty darn proud of myself.  Like the vast majority of my recipes, there is a lot of room for personalization.  It comes together in a snap, it typically wows a crowd, and its versatility makes it a great starting point for a lot of other recipes.  The best part about this cheese is its simplicity.  The basic cheese only has two ingredients.  Seriously.  Two.  You read that right.

All you need is a half gallon of milk and about 1/4 cup of lemon juice.  I have used both cow and goat milk with great results.  For the cow milk, have used both whole milk and 2% and have gotten great results.

Gently heat the milk on the stove to somewhere between 175 and 200 degrees.  Stir in the lemon juice, either 1/4 cup from a bottle or juice from 2-3 fresh lemons.  Remove from heat and cover the pot, then go do something else for about 15 minutes or so.

Carefully strain the mixture through a few layers of cheesecloth in a colander.  Tie the corners, or put a rubber band around the cheesecloth so it makes a bundle, and suspend the bundle so it drips.  If you want to be super good about not wasting anything, drain the cheese over a pot and use the liquid for baking.  If you want denser cheese, consider leaving it in the colander and adding a weight to the top.  If you want more moist cheese like ricotta, use more cheesecloth and/or do not let the cheese drain for more than an hour or two.  If you want slightly dryer, more crumbly cheese, use perhaps one less layer of cheesecloth and/or let drain for longer.  I like mine on the dryer side, so I tend to use three layers of cheesecloth, let it drip for a while, then remove a layer and let it continue draining in the fridge overnight.  Either way it's not a hard cheese, it's a creamy and spreadable cheese, but how creamy is completely up to you.

Once the cheese is the desired consistency, you can either leave it as is to use in baking or other recipes, or add some salt and your choice of herbs (or other flavors) for a very tasty snack.  I tend to be generous with the salt, a bit of pepper, and a handful of whatever mix of herbs catch my eye in the garden.

Coming soon: recipe for Tomatoes Stuffed with Homemade Cheese!

Happy Snacking!
Jillian