Can cheese be frozen? 9 practical tips for you!
Everyone of us knows the problem. We shop for fine cheese during our holidays or on an excursion, miscalculate at brunch with the family or raclette evening and are faced with the question what to do with all the leftover cheese. We have looked into the question, asked around and give you valuable tips on what to consider when freezing cheese. Our tips are based on personal experience and recommendations from cheese professionals, but we do not claim to be complete.
CHEESE TYPES
Before we look at our tips individually, we have to make a little excursion into cheese. Roughly speaking, there are the following types of cheese:
-Extra hard cheese (e.g. Sbrinz, Grana Padano)
-Hard cheese (e.g. Emmental, Gruyére)
-Half-cart cheese (e.g. Appenzeller,Raclette)
-Soft cheese (e.g. Brie, Camembert)
-Fresh cheese (e.g. Mozzarella, cottage cheese)
Basically every cheese can be frozen, but we do not always recommend this. Depending on the type of cheese, freezing cheese makes more sense and the loss of taste and texture is greater or smaller.
9 tips
Cheese in pieces, as you get it at cheezy.ch, is better suited for freezing than sliced cheese.
Cream cheese becomes "grilled" and flakes after defrosting. It is edible but who wants it? Therefore not recommendable
If you have ever frozen a soft cheese (e.g. Brie, Camembert) you know that the cheese will get muddy and therefore we do not recommend this.
Hard cheese (Emmental, Gruyère) and raclette cheese as well as extra hard cheese (Sbrinz) are the types of cheese that are best suited for freezing. However, these cheeses can be kept in the refrigerator for many weeks if stored correctly.
Extra tip for raclette cheese Wrap cheese slices individually between cling film, this is the best way to keep them "fresh".
Fondue mixtures (grated cheese) can be frozen well when vacuum-packed.
Packed cheese to freeze in freezer bags. The more airtightly packed the better, see also tip 5, also works with other cheeses.
Lubricated semi-hard cheeses such as Appenzeller are not recommended to be frozen and if so, the rind should be cut off (cheese continues to ripen in the freezer, even if less quickly)
Actually, it is much too bad to freeze cheese, so our last tip is to invite friends and family to enjoy the cheese together, then you don't have to freeze anything.
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