Simple Homemade Cheese Recipes

Cheesemaking doesn’t have to be difficult or time-consuming. The key is to start with simple, easy-to-follow recipes. Here are 12 recipes for delicious homemade cheese.

If you have never made cheese before, I recommend reading about how to make cheese at home to learn about the ingredients, supplies, and techniques that go into cheesemaking. Once you got the basics, then you’re ready to delve into some recipes!

I have broken down these recipes into 4 categories based on the type of cheese and level of difficulty.

Uncooked Cheeses

In general, fresh cheeses are always the easiest. Here are a few fresh kinds of cheese that can be made without any cooking at all!

1. Labneh is made by draining whey from yogurt.
2. Acid ricotta is curded with citric acid or vinegar.
3. Kefir cheese is made from curdled milk kefir.

Basic Curded Cheeses

Curding cheese with either a mesophilic culture or rennet adds an additional step to the cheesemaking process. Here are three kinds of cheese that can be made without any special equipment. They only involve two steps: heating the milk in a pot on the stove, then draining the whey after the curds have set.

4. Cream cheese is made from milk and cream that has been set with rennet.
5. Chevre is a variation of cream cheese made from goat milk.
6. Cottage cheese is curded with buttermilk and then heated to firm up the curds.

Simple Cooked Curd Cheese

Many kinds of cheese involve cooking the curd to firm up the curd and remove more lactose. Here are two simple cooked cheeses, that are both stored in brine, which makes them easy and reliable. Feta is so easy that I usually make it a few times a year!

7. Feta involves gently cooking the curds before pressing, then the blocks of cheese are stored in brine.
8. Halloumi is poached in whey after pressing, then it is stored in brine.

Recipes that involve fancy techniques

Here are a few cheese recipes for anyone interested in trying out some fancy cheesemaking techniques. None of these are beginner recipes, however, if you’ve made a cooked rennet cheese before, then why not have some fun making pressed and pulled cheeses.

9. Mozzarella involves the acidification of the cheese curds so that they can be stretched before being rolled into a ball and brined.
10. Whey ricotta is made from the proteins that coagulate when fresh whey is superheated.
11. Squeaky cheese curds are the first step to making hard cheese. The curds are pressed, then dry-cooked (cheddared) to firm up the curds.
12. Farmhouse cheddar is a simple hard cheese that can be preserved with a washed rind, bandaged rind, or waxed.