Homemade goat cheese is a delicious addition to salads, crepes, pizza and sandwiches. It is an easy cheese for beginners, based on a simple cultured cream cheese.

This recipe for soft goat cheese doesn’t go into detail about each of the steps. To learn more about cheesemaking techniques read Homemade Cheese 101.

Chevre and soft goat cheese

Simple homemade goat cheese and lots of different flavors

Homemade soft goat cheese, like chevre and goat cream cheese, is an easy cheese for beginners. See the bottom of the post for different ways to flavour soft goat cheese.

Author: Emillie
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 10 minutes
Yield: Approx. 1 1/2 lbs
Category: Cheese
Method: Cultured

Scale

Ingredients

1 gallon whole goat’s milk
Mesophilic starter or chevre starter
1/2 portion of rennet mixed in 1/4 cup of chlorine free water (see notes)
1 tbsp cheese salt (optional)

Instructions

Heat milk to 76F.
Add the rennet and the mesophilic culture at the same time. Stir thoroughly to ensure even mixing.
Maintain at 72F for 12 hours to set the curd.
It will have formed a thick curd. Gently pour the entire batch into a strainer lined with butter muslin.
Hang in the butter muslin for 6-48 hours, until you have reached the desired consistency.
Add the salt and any flavourings at this point and store in an airtight container in the fridge.

Notes

Only use half the amount of rennet that is normally used to set a gallon of milk. The exact amount will depend on whether you are using liquid rennet or a rennet tablet. Follow the instructions on your rennet package or use 1 drop of liquid rennet.
Chevre is officially made with it’s own specific mesophilic culture. However, you can use 1/4 cup of kefir or mesophilic yogurt as the culture. For a mild tasting cheese, don’t add any culture.
The consistency is based on how long the cheesed is hung. Hang for 6 hours for a creamy spreading cheese or 48 hours to get a firmer crumbling cheese.

Keywords: chevre, goat cream cheese, soft cheese, easy, diy, homemade

Flavouring Soft Goat Cheese

Flavoured goat cheese is a delicious and impressive dish. Dried herbs can be mixed in with the salt for a Boursin style cheese. However, mixing goat cheese after draining will result in a soft spreading cheese, even if it has been drained for 48 hours.

To maintain the firm structure of goat cheese, sprinkle salt and other flavours on the surface of the cheese. Here are a few popular flavour additions: