Is it possible to freeze different types of cheese in the freezer?

Which varieties can be frozen?

There are more than two thousand varieties of cheese in the world. It is classified according to several criteria:

1. Hardness. The product can be so hard that it breaks - it cannot be cut. Semi-hard, soft and fused are also found.
2. Technology. Depending on the type and country of the manufacturer, the main enzyme in the recipe changes. It ferments the product, allows it to harden and gives it a special taste.
3. Excerpt. There is quick cheese, which immediately after preparation goes to the consumer. They also prepare a mature delicacy, which first lies in a special room at a special temperature and humidity and only then becomes a treat for your table.

Hard and semi-hard varieties tolerate cold well without losing their taste. If you freeze cheese and then defrost it, you can eat it, but it will become crumbly and it will be difficult to cut it even with a slicer.

The following types of cheese can be frozen:

• Parmesan;
• Russian;
• Edam;
• Colby;
• Cheddar;
• Gouda;
• Mozzarella;
• Provolone;
• Monterey Jack.

Which varieties should not be frozen?

It is convenient to store cheese in the freezer so that it does not spoil, but there are varieties that are best not frozen.

Homemade - prepared without high temperatures, fermentation and industrial equipment. They are eaten only fresh. If you put such a product in the freezer, then after defrosting you will get regular cottage cheese. Soft and pasty varieties of Ricotta, Brie, Camembert also become grainy and crumbly after freezing.

to freeze cheese with noble mold , since it dies at sub-zero temperatures. A stale product (sticky, sour, moldy, dried) cannot be stored at all.

Interesting. Cheese production on an industrial scale began in Holland in the 14th century. Today, the largest producer of this product is the United States of America. The Greeks consume the most cheese. They add it to a traditional salad, fry it, boil it, bake it with seafood and meat.

What to do if you need to preserve cheese for a long time?

A small portion that will be eaten over a few days can be safely left in the refrigerator. The harder and better quality the cheese, the longer it will be stored. For example, the French successfully store durum varieties for up to 3-5 years without any freezer.

There are several ways to freeze:

1. In one piece. Wrap a piece of cheese in foil and place it in the freezer.
2. In grated form. Convenient to use later for casseroles, pizza, lasagna and other dishes. To keep the crumbs crumbly, sprinkle them with a little flour before freezing. During the freezing process, shake the container several times to prevent the cheese fragments from freezing together.
3. In the form of slices. Cut the cheese into layers no more than 1 cm thick. Wrap each piece in foil or parchment paper and put it in the freezer. Do not place the slices in one pile, as they will freeze and break when separated from each other after defrosting.

Helpful tip: Before freezing, cool the cheese by leaving it in the refrigerator for a few hours.

Semi-hard and hard cheese is suitable for freezing; the maximum shelf life in this form is 6 months. Then it dries out and becomes unfit for consumption, especially fresh. The maximum way you can use a dried product is in grated form for pizza, pasta and other hot dishes.

Freezing grated and sliced ​​cheese

A product that has already been grated or cut can and should be stored in the freezer: having preparations for holiday dishes is very convenient and practical. At temperatures below 0°C, grated cheese is stored in packaging. Parchment paper, special freezer bags or grocery plastic boxes are suitable for this.

Advice. Defrost the delicacy in stages. First, transfer it to the bottom shelf of the refrigerator, after a while it will smoothly thaw and be ready to eat. A sudden temperature change, when a product goes from -10°C to +25°C, will spoil its taste and consistency.

Freezing hard and semi-hard cheeses

Hard and semi-hard cheeses are most often made from cow's milk. They contain a small amount of moisture - less than 40%. In production they are pressed and kept for a long time to ripen.

These varieties are ideal for freezing and have a long shelf life, which makes them different from soft cheeses. But it is recommended to store them in vacuum packaging, then the product will last in the refrigerator for up to 4 months.

Interesting. Clawson Stilton Gold cheese is made with the addition of gold. A 100-gram portion of the delicacy costs 1 thousand US dollars. 1 kg of Serbian Pule made from donkey milk will cost 3.5 thousand dollars. For 1 kg of delicacy it takes about 25 liters of raw milk.

Do not freeze too large portions: divide the product into small pieces of 250-500 g. If you have a large family, we recommend freezing portions that will be eaten within a week. This way the product will not have time to spoil on the refrigerator shelf.

Algorithm for freezing hard and semi-hard varieties:

1. Divide the cheese into portions.
2. We put each one in a package: container, bag or paper.
3. If the delicacy is sealed in a factory sealed container, do not open it, but immediately put it in the freezer.

It is recommended to label the packaging indicating the date the product was frozen. This way you will protect yourself and your loved ones from poisoning.

How to store in brine. Simple recipe

It is recommended to purchase cheese in the “original” whey solution. But if this is not possible, then to maintain the taste and increase the shelf life of the product, you need to independently prepare the brine for the cheese.

1. Raw brine. To prepare, you need to dissolve salt in boiled water at the rate of 1-2 tsp. for 1 glass of liquid. You will need enough water to completely cover the cheese in the container.
2. Brine with herbs. Mix the dried ingredients in a saucer: cumin, red pepper, dill, parsley, garlic. Add the resulting mixture to the salt solution, which was prepared using the above method. To taste, you can include vegetable oil and mustard seeds.

It is better to keep cheese in a salt solution in a glass container. The expiration date will be:

• in the refrigerator for 2 weeks or more;
• without refrigeration for 48 hours (in a dark, cool place).

Before serving, cheese that has been stored in brine should be immersed in water or milk for 5 minutes. This will help remove excess salt from the product.

Freezing spreadable cheeses

Paste and curd cheeses Philadelphia, Ricotta, Mascarpone and Mozzarella are soft in structure. They can be stored in the freezer for up to 3 months. The product will withstand freezing especially well if you leave it in its original packaging.

Interesting. All spreadable cheeses are usually spicy due to the type of raw materials used for melting, as well as flavoring additives. Such products contain up to 60% fat.

Cheese is such a valuable product that it allows you to completely cover your daily requirement for fats, proteins, and minerals. Enough 200 g of delicacy or 2 processed cheese, 2 servings of cheese soup or ½ serving of cheesecake.

Freezing processed cheese

Processed cheese is almost never frozen: it is inexpensive, not very popular, it is not bought in kilograms, so it rarely disappears in the refrigerator.

As a rule, it comes in a foil wrapper - there is no need to pack it additionally for freezing. But be prepared for the fact that the defrosted delicacy will turn into a paste that you will have to spread on bread or add, for example, to meat in French.

Interesting. Every cheese that was produced in the USSR had black or blue plastic numbers fused into it. They indicated the production date of the cheese wheel and carried other information about the product. Now this data is printed on the packaging. In the USSR, processed cheese was especially revered. In Moscow there is even a monument depicting a fox and a crow holding processed Druzhba cheese.

Tips for choosing in a store

The higher the quality of the cheese, the longer it is stored, so you need to know the rules for choosing a product:

• High-quality cheese has a white milky color, elastic and soft consistency, slightly brittle, but does not break up into lumps.
• When cut, its porosity is visible: many small holes of irregular shape.
• The packaging should not be swollen or deformed.
• The presence of sticky crumbs in the product is unacceptable.
• A crumbly consistency and dry areas indicate that the shelf life is coming to an end, which means that the beneficial properties of the cheese are minimal.
• It is recommended to buy cheese with the whey in which it was matured. Such goods are protected from premature damage.
• The price of a product that is too low should alert you. There is a high probability that low-quality raw materials were used.

You can get more detailed information about choosing cheese from the video:

What varieties are stored in the refrigerator?

Russian is a semi-solid product that is prepared from pasteurized cow's milk with milk-clotting rennet enzyme, as well as a starter of mesophilic lactic acid bacteria. Like all semi-hard cheeses, it is perfect for freezing.

Brie is a soft cow's milk cheese named after a French province. It is located in the Ile-de-France region near Paris, where it was first made. Spreadable cheeses store well in the freezer. If the delicacy lasts in the refrigerator for 8 days, then at sub-zero temperatures it can last up to several months.

Suluguni is a pickled Georgian cheese that came from the Samegrelo region. Suluguni is frozen, but before the procedure it must be soaked in 18% brine. When the product has drained, pack it and send it to the chamber.

Philadelphia is a soft, creamy cheese made from milk and cream. The flavor bouquet contains sweetish notes. Does not require ripening, it can be frozen. However, after defrosting, grains may appear in it.

Dutch is a hard cheese that is most often prepared in round, flattened heads. In cross-section, the delicacy is covered with small eyes, but can also have a smooth surface. This spicy and slightly salty product is frozen by cutting it into cubes and sprinkling them with starch. This way the pieces won't stick together.

Parmesan is a long-ripening Italian hard cheese. It is brittle, crumbles when cut and has an uneven cut. It tolerates temperatures down to –20°C well and, when frozen, will wait for its gastronomic hour for a couple of months.

Interesting. Parmesan is so loved and valued in Italy that in the 50s of the twentieth century, banks issued loans to cheesemakers using this variety as collateral. In Italian banks of those years there were special storage facilities where the borrower's delicacy was kept and matured as collateral. Didn't repay the debt? The bank sold your goods.

Homemade - delicate milk cheese, which is prepared at home using primitive technologies, cannot be stored. This product is consumed only fresh. Frost will turn it into ordinary cottage cheese, and if stored in the refrigerator for a long time, it will spoil.

Interesting. The Italians produce a very strange cheese, Casu Marzu. The delicacy is aged longer than usual, until it rots, when the larvae of cheese flies begin to multiply in it. They turn the product into a soft mass from which liquid oozes, or “cheese tears.” There are quite a lot of insects in the finished cheese, so Italians eat it with their eyes closed. It is impossible to remove the larvae from the head: under the influence of gastric juice they do not die, periodically causing nausea, vomiting and stomach pain in the gourmet. Dead cheese flies eaten by a Kasu Marzu lover even threaten to be poisoned with cadaveric poison.

What criteria are used to determine the suitability of cheese?

The quality of the product can be affected by violation of the rules of transportation, storage in stores and at home. In the warm season, increased air temperature and direct sunlight reduce the shelf life.

As a rule, soft cheeses begin to deteriorate under the influence of various bacteria, and only then mold fungi. In cold weather, there is a danger of the product freezing, which also leads to spoilage.

What to pay attention to:

1. The labeling indicates the manufacturer's recommendations on when to use the product. For products with a short shelf life, the month, day of release, and the exact date by which the cheese must be used are indicated.
2. The integrity of the packaging must be without damage. A broken seal most likely indicates a spoiled product.
3. The appearance of the cheese mass should be uniform, plastic, and have the consistency of thick sour cream. The color is milky white. Serum separation, cracks on the surface, and any color change are not allowed.
4. The smell of fresh cheese is light creamy. Any foreign odors, even the pleasant sour smell inherent in fermented milk products, indicate that it has begun to deteriorate.
5. The taste of classic mascarpone is fresh, with a creamy aftertaste. The appearance of a sour or bitter taste indicates that the process of oxidation of milk fats has begun.

How long does frozen cheese last?

The shelf life of a product depends on its variety. Hard and semi-hard varieties, cut into large pieces, last the longest - up to six months. The soft ones will have to be removed from the freezer after a couple of months.

If you plan to store cheese in the freezer to prevent it from spoiling, wrap the product in foil or parchment paper and place it in a container. If storing in plastic bags, add some sugar cubes. This will prevent mold from forming.

Place each variety in a separate package, as some of them have their own original smell. Indicate the shelf life on it (start, end). To prolong it, change the packaging more often. If your cheese has lost its presentation after being frozen, dip it in milk. In 2-3 hours you will receive a delicacy that can be safely served.

Interesting. The largest number of cheese gourmets live in France. Here, a foul-smelling product is a sign of high quality. In Russia, cheese production began on an industrial scale in 1886, after N.V. Vereshchagin opened the first cheese factory in the Empire. In Switzerland, he learned the craft from European cheese makers, and at home he adjusted overseas recipes to the taste preferences of the Russian consumer.

Features of storing different types of cheese

The method and duration of storage largely depends on the type of cheese.

Solid varieties can be stored at home for up to 15 days, and a whole head can be stored for up to 2 months (in intact original packaging). It is important to provide the product with correct storage conditions. The optimal temperature is +5...8 ℃, and air humidity is more than 85%.

Varieties such as Gruyere, Cheddar and Parmesan can be stored for up to 1 month. Periodically check the product for mold and cut off affected areas. The larger the piece, the better and longer it lasts.

Hard cheeses can be stored in the freezer for up to 3 months. Thaw the product immediately before use. However, be prepared for the fact that after freezing the cheese will not be as aromatic and tasty as fresh.

To preserve the flavor of the product, wrap it in cotton cloth soaked in salt water and then in foil. Store this cheese on the shelves of the refrigerator.

How many days can soft cheeses ? On average, the shelf life is 3 days at a temperature of +4...5 ℃ and air humidity of 90%.

If mold appears on the product, the entire piece must be discarded. Cutting off the affected area will not bring the desired result. Due to the soft structure of cheese, pathogenic microorganisms quickly attack the entire product.

Brined cheeses (feta, suluguni, Ossetian or Abkhazian) require special storage conditions They should be kept in salted brine in a glass or enamel container. Shelf life – 1-2 months at temperatures up to +8 ℃.

If the cheese is too salty, soak it in milk for 8-10 hours before serving. Do not pour hot water into the product. This will not only lead to a loss of beneficial properties, but will also make the cheese stringy.

To successfully store homemade cheese at home, periodically check the brine product. If a film appears on the surface, replace the brine with fresh one. It is recommended to eat goat or sheep cheeses as quickly as possible, since their shelf life does not exceed 3 days.

There is an opinion that cottage cheese also refers to pickled cheeses. However, it should be stored in glass packaging and without brine.

Processed cheese in an opened package can be stored for no more than 2-3 days. After this period, it dries out, changes structure and loses its original taste.

blue cheese, wrap it in cling film and then place it in an airtight container. This will prevent its specific aroma from spreading throughout the refrigerator.

Fine varieties (Camembert, Roquefort, Brie, Dor Blue, etc.) are not advisable to store in the refrigerator, as they love warmth.

Adyghe cheese in vacuum packaging or in an airtight glass container. Proper storage organization will allow you to preserve the product for up to 1 month.

Smoked braid cheese must be stored at a temperature of 0…+4 ℃ and humidity up to 85%. The shelf life of the product is 75 days in vacuum packaging and 7-10 days in parchment.

to store tofu cheese in its original packaging in the refrigerator. If the container is damaged, transfer the product to an airtight container or zip-lock bag. This product requires constant high humidity. To extend the shelf life, fill it with distilled water, but do not forget to change it daily to prevent the growth of bacteria.

Cheese is a valuable product that has a special taste, aroma and is characterized by a high protein content. To preserve it for a long time, follow simple rules, taking into account the variety and observing the recommended expiration date. It’s best to buy only as much cheese as your family can eat within a few days.