How to make homemade cottage cheese from milk or kefir. 6 easy ways

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-13 00:26

You will not find such delicious cottage cheese in the store.

11 main rules for delicious homemade cottage cheese

1. Curd can be made in two ways: with and without heating. This is a matter of taste and convenience. However, the cottage cheese is slightly softer without heating.

2. If you are going to make cottage cheese from milk, take a rustic one. Especially if, according to the recipe, it should turn sour. But you can also use store milk of any fat content. The fatter it is, the correspondingly fatter the cottage cheese will turn out.

3. You can also take kefir of any fat content. Expired kefir can only be used if you heat it.

4. The quantity and taste of the curd depend on the quality of the original product. So when buying milk or kefir, you should not skimp.

5. You can cook cottage cheese both in a saucepan and in a water bath. This is again a matter of convenience. You will find a description of the cooking process in a water bath in the recipe for kefir curd.

6. It is better to heat dairy products in a heavy-bottomed aluminum or stainless steel pan. Enameled dishes will not work: everything in them can burn.

7. Curd is spread in a colander, covered with several layers of gauze. Place a saucepan or some other container under the colander so that the whey will drain there.

8. If you leave the curd in a colander for a couple of hours or less, it will be moist.

9. To make the curd dry and crumbly, you need to tie the ends of the gauze and hang the knot over a sink or saucepan for several hours or even overnight. The time depends on your preference: the longer the whey drains, the drier the curd will be.

10. And to keep the cottage cheese in shape, you can put it under oppression.

11. Homemade cottage cheese is stored in the refrigerator for no more than four days.

1. Homemade cottage cheese from milk

This is the traditional way of making curd.

Ingredients

2 liters of milk

From the specified amount, about 400 g of cottage cheese will be obtained.

Preparation

Leave the milk in a warm place for 1-3 days. Don't stir it. The time depends on the temperature in the room: the warmer, the faster the milk will turn sour. To speed up the process, you can add 2 tablespoons of sour cream or a slice of black bread to the milk.

Milk should not turn sour in the refrigerator. There it will acquire an unpleasant odor and may start to taste bitter. If you notice that the milk starts to turn sour in the refrigerator, it is better to take it out so that it sour under suitable conditions.

Sour milk will look like a soft, thick jelly, and whey will begin to appear around it. Place the milk in a saucepan and place over low heat.

Cook, stirring occasionally. Do not overheat the milk, it should be a little warm. After 10-15 minutes from the start of cooking, curd curds will begin to form in the pan. Remove the pan from heat and let stand for the same amount of time. Then transfer the curd to a colander and let drain.

2. Homemade cottage cheese from milk without heating

The finished cottage cheese will be more tender than in the first case.

Ingredients

2 liters of milk

From the specified amount, about 400 g of cottage cheese will be obtained.

Preparation

Let the milk sour, as in the first method. Do not heat the thickened mass, but immediately fold it onto cheesecloth.

3. Homemade cottage cheese made from milk and lemon

Thanks to the lemon juice, the milk will turn sour much faster.

Ingredients

• 2 liters of milk;
• 1 lemon.

From the specified amount, about 350 g of cottage cheese will be obtained.

Preparation

Pour milk into a saucepan. If you are using country milk, then bring it to a boil and reduce the heat. If the milk is already pasteurized, then just warm it up, but do not boil it.

Squeeze the juice out of the lemon - you should get about 60 ml. Then pour the lemon juice into the milk in a thin stream and stir. Whey will begin to separate almost immediately and curd curd will appear. Once this happens, remove the pan from the heat.

Leave it on for a few minutes to cool the mixture slightly. Transfer the curd to a colander and let the whey drain.

4. Homemade cottage cheese from milk and kefir

Kefir also contributes to the rapid curdling of milk. A very soft and delicate product is obtained from such a mixture.

Ingredients

• 1 liter of milk;
• 1 liter of kefir.

From the specified amount, about 300 g of cottage cheese will be obtained.

Preparation

Heat the milk to a near boil. When the first bubbles appear, remove the pan from the heat and pour in the kefir. Stir and leave to cool completely.

After that, whey and curd curds will appear in the pan. They must be put in a colander covered with gauze in the same way as in all other methods.

5. Homemade kefir cottage cheese

A rather dense and crumbly cottage cheese is obtained from heated kefir.

Ingredients

1 liter of kefir

From the specified amount, about 200 g of cottage cheese will be obtained.

Preparation

You will need two pots of different diameters. One of them should fit freely into the other. Fill a large saucepan halfway with water. Bring water to a boil over high heat.

Pour kefir into another saucepan. After boiling, place a small saucepan in a large one and heat the kefir over low heat.

Kefir should break down into cottage cheese and whey. When this happens, remove the pan from the heat and let sit for 10 minutes. Transfer the curd to a colander and let the whey drain.

6. Homemade cottage cheese from frozen kefir

And from frozen kefir you will get the most delicate airy curd, reminiscent of cream cheese. It can be mixed with herbs, salted and used to make sandwiches.

Ingredients

1 liter of kefir

From the specified amount, about 200 g of cottage cheese will be obtained.

Preparation

It is best to take kefir in a package: the bottle can crack when frozen, and the petrified kefir will be difficult to remove from it. If you only have bottled kefir at hand, just pour it into a plastic bag and tie it very tightly.

Place the bag in the freezer overnight. Kefir should look like a piece of ice. If after 10-12 hours the kefir still does not become as hard as a stone, it means that it is of poor quality. From such a product, liquid cottage cheese will turn out, more like sour cream.

Carefully cut the bag open, put the contents in a colander and wrap in cheesecloth.

Leave the kefir at room temperature until completely thawed.